Primrose
by leonamellark
Summary: In a world where Katniss didn't volunteer for Primrose in the Games, Prim is thrust into the bloodthirsty Games with no chance of survival. Will she find a way to survive? What will happen between her and Peeta? Will she make any allies while in the games? Read & review! Note: Prim is 15 in these Games. All other tributes are the same ages and people. Thank you.
1. Chapter 1 The Reaping

"_Primrose Everdeen." _

The voice that just spoke my name was unmistakable. It was clear and crisp with a posh accent that was almost as strange to me as the person it was coming from. Effie Trinket.

"Where are you dear?" she spoke out again, the ringing of her clearly higher than average pitched voice bringing me back into reality. The crowd of the other fifteen year old girls around separated away from me slowly, everybody backing away from the girl who just got reaped into her sure death.

I knew I had to move my legs towards the stage, I just didn't know how to. Sure enough, with another beckoning from Effie, my legs found a way to work without my acknowledgement. I made my way slowly towards the stage while hundreds of eyes stared straight at me when all of a sudden I heard a familiar yelp from my sister, Katniss.

"PRIM! PRIM!"

I snapped my head round and saw my sister, my beautiful long brown haired grey eyed sister, struggling against two large Peacekeepers in spotless white uniforms that were obviously newly washed for today's reaping. I opened my mouth to try and scream her name back, but my voice box wasn't working. I tried to move my legs to run towards her, but my legs were back to their non-movement state. I was stuck helplessly like a statue while she screamed the four that I knew were coming. "I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!"

"I believe we have a volunteer…" Effie Trinket's voice was ringing with the same shock that was registering on everybody's faces. Katniss' peacekeepers let go of her and she jogged towards me and held me in her arms for the next few seconds until the peacekeepers would grab me. My arms wrapped around her tightly and I closed my eyes and dug my face into her classic braid. I couldn't let this happen, I could let my sister take my place in the death row of Panem and I knew this is how she felt too but this was my death sentence.

"I can't let you do this Katniss…" I said in barely a whisper. I broke free from her clutch and with all my force I ran up the stage, holding in tears as I hauled my legs up the stairs to the stage. I reached the microphone and looked back at Katniss. She was kneeling on the floor where I had left her, her mouth opening and closing from the terror and shock combined, her eyes puffy and red. I couldn't look at her for longer than a few seconds because I knew I burst into uncontrollable tears which would make me look weak on camera. I turned to Effie Trinket on my right side, who was so obviously pleased by the dramatic turn of events. I turned to the microphone on my left side and grabbed it. I cleared my throat and told the crowd as confidently as I could, "My sister won't be volunteering."

As soon as I'd uttered the words, peacekeepers just as clean as the ones before grabbed Katniss and pulled her up and took her away and this time she didn't struggle against them at all, she just let them drag her limp body through the dirt. I couldn't imagine how she was feeling. I watched her still as the Effie Trinket hopped across the stage to the boy's reaping bowl and picked out a name. I didn't hear who was called as I too busy watched Gale, a family friend, fetch Katniss from the Peacekeepers and carry her back to a house I would probably never get to see again. I saw Katniss cry into Gale's shoulder as he stroked her braid calmingly. He always loved her. It wasn't until my hand was being pulled into a firm shake from the boy I would be entering the Games with. I looked up from the strong hand to see it was the face of Peeta Mellark, District 12's bakers' third son. I had never spoken to him, but his father was always fond of my sister and I. He always traded us freshly baked bread for squirrels, sometimes rabbits too, that Katniss caught. On my last birthday, he bought some of my goat's milk off me and gave me a slice of free cake as a present. He was a sweet man and I had no doubt his son was also pleasant. I was glad I would have someone nice with me, someone I knew if only through an acquaintance, but on the other hand it also made it worse, knowing that another person would be dying with me in this.


	2. Chapter 2 The Goodbyes

**Hey! Thanks for reading through Chapter One and giving this story a chance! It's my first fanfic ever and I would really like it if you would review. Please tell me what you would like to happen in future chapters, and who you like Prim to be allies with and whether you'd like a romance, maybe? Thank you! Enjoy :-) **

Effie ushered me and the baker's son off stage. I instantly heard the rumble of chatter from the crowds after being told they could leave and return home. I wondered what Katniss must be doing. If Gale was with her. If he had managed to calm her down a little bit, or whether she was completely going out of her mind. I was so happy I would get to see her soon, even if only for a few minutes to say goodbye, I would still get to see her. Get to hug her. Get to see my mother. Oh god, my mother. I hadn't even thought of her yet. My beautiful mother. How was she? Was Katniss helping her? Was she helping Katniss? Was Gale just taking care of them both?

Thoughts escalated through my mind as I followed a team of Peacekeepers into the room in the Justice Building where I would get to say my goodbyes. It was a plush room, with red carpets and red sofa's and green curtains. I sat carefully down on one of the sofa's and grasped onto the velvet that covered the foam cushions. I held my head down until my mother and Katniss ran into the room. Katniss grabbed me and held me in her firm but loving arms and cried. Her tears egged on my own and this time I couldn't hold them back. "I'm so sorry," I told her. "I couldn't let you take my place."

"I understand," she choked out. "It would have been the same if our roles were reversed." She held me at arm's length and looked at me straight in the eyes. She grabbed a piece of my loose hair that was hanging out from my two plaits and twisted with it in her fingers. "You can do this, you know, Prim. You can win this thing, and you can come home and we'll all bathe in our riches. We can get another cat, so Buttercup has a friend and-"

"I won't win this, Katniss," I interrupted. "We all know it's true."

The truth set upon her face like stone and tears dripped silently from across her hallow cheeks. My mother finally walked over and sat on her knees looking at both me and Katniss. She didn't speak, she just looked from Katniss to me, from Katniss to me, from Katniss to me. She finally pulled us both into her arms and whispered "I love you"s to us and rocked us back and forth. This would be the last time I would hug my mother and my sister, the two most amazing and important people in my life.

It felt like only a few seconds we'd been embraced with each other when the Peacekeepers barged through the door to collect them both. "YOU'LL BE OKAY, PRIM, I SWEAR, YOU'LL BE OK, YOU CAN DO THIS PRIM! PRIM!" Katniss screamed as the doors closed.

I didn't get time to sit down before my next visitor came. It was the other tributes dad. The baker. Mr. Mellark. He passed me a package wrapped in white and tied with string. He stood for a minute looking at me with red eyes, obviously just from seeing his son, and spluttered out "I'll look out for them both. I'm sorry." and he left as soon as he entered.

I sat down on the red sofa's again and began to open the package Mr. Mellark gave me. Inside was two cookies, with tiny pieces of white and brown chocolate baked inside it's beige crumbly goodness. I looked at them and my stomach grumbled hungrily, reminding me I hadn't eaten since I'd woken up at six o'clock this morning from nightmares of being reaped. I couldn't eat the cookies now, as even though I had pains from the hunger, I knew if I'd eat anything, with all the fright inside of me, I would just be re-greeted with it again in a few minutes.

The door opened again and Gale walked through. He picked me up and hugged me tightly before sitting me back down on the sofa. He held out his hand and inside his clutch was a silver bracelet with a blue rock on. "This is my mothers. She told me to give it to you, for your token." Gale told me. He slipped it on my wrist and clasped it on. It was a perfect fit, and it was beautiful. I'd seen Gales' mother, Hazelle, wearing it before and I'd once told her how beautiful it looked. A wave of emotions hit me, knowing I'd never get to see that woman again.

"Tell her thank you. A really big thank you – this is just beautiful. Thank you," I stammered. I pulled Gale in for another hug, not knowing how much time we had left. "Look, Gale-"

"I know, Prim. I will look after them the most I can. I wouldn't do any less. You know that," he smiled at me reassuringly, pulling me back in for a hug.

"Tell her how you feel Gale," I whispered into his chest. "Tell Katniss that you love her. She will need you."

I felt him nod against me as the Peacekeepers barged in and grabbed him away from me. He waved goodbye, and I'm sure a saw a tear go down his cheek.

**Thanks for reading! Please review! I will update as soon as possible because I am enjoying writing this! ANY SUGGESTIONS ARE VERY WELCOME. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHAT YOU WANT TO HAPPEN! Thank you! **


	3. Chapter 3 The Train Ride to the Capitol

**Hey! Thanks for continuality reading, I really am enjoying writing this fan fiction at the minute. Please review! **

We rode to the train station in a chic black car. It was beautiful inside with black and ivory leather seats and the windows were tinted from the inside, giving the world a black and white colouring. Effie sat in the middle at the back seat with me on her right side and Peeta on her left. Haymich sat in front drinking from a small silver flask occasionally next to the chauffer. It was awfully silent all the way until the car stopped at the train station where numerous cameramen were taking our pictures and filming our faces as we got out of the car. I tried to make my facial expression as blank and emotionless as possible to hide my actual weak self. I looked over at Peeta, who was trying to do the same thing, but his red puffy eyes gave his game away. It must be the same for me as well, as the faces of camera men and women were softening, obviously thinking that we were just another pair of outline district tributes who were going to probably die within the first twenty four hours of the Games, if that.

I was relieved when Effie ushered the camera folk away to let us get onto the train that would take us to the Capitol. She then showed us to our rooms for the journey and told us we had exactly two hours to get ready until dinner would be served. When Effie finally left us both to go into our rooms, I locked the door firmly so nobody could come in. I pushed my back to the door and slid down it until I was sitting down on the beautiful cream carpets of the room. I shoved off my shoes and socks and dug my feet and hands into the warm, fluffy carpet. I let tears that had been waiting for what felt like years slide down my cheeks. The longer I cried, the less and less tears came out. I didn't know how long I'd been sitting there, but my tears had finally stopped. I got up slowly, and peeled off my reaping dress and undid my two side French braids and found my way into the shower. There were so many buttons in the shower, over a hundred for sure, all that did different things. I pressed a random button and a peach smelling liquid came out of the shower head. I scrubbed it into my hair and the smell became stronger. It smelt beautiful. I pressed another button on the other side of the panel and a unfamiliar smell surrounded me. It was a sweet, distinct smell that I hadn't smelt before but was lovely in all manners. I washed my body with this scent, and climbed out of the shower onto a black panel. The black panel began to blow hot air as soon as I touched it and blew my hair and body dry. I felt no need for a towel after the unusual experience of being drying in this manner.

I left the bathroom and closed the door shut. It felt odd being naked in a room I'd only been in for an hour so I quickly found which drawer held all the clothes and quickly chose a blue frock that was decorated with lace daisies. The materiel of the dress was classier than anything I'd ever seen, let alone got to wear. It was the most beautiful piece of clothing I'd ever seen. I looked over at my pile of clothes that I'd left strewn on the floor and saw the silver bracelet. I ran over to it quickly and clasped it onto my wrist, feeling much warmer and more homely as soon as it was safely on. I picked up my clothes and folded them and placed them onto my bed as neatly as I could. Mother had always shown me how to keep my clothes neat and as little creased as possible, but I guess that didn't matter now. I wouldn't be able to fold someone neatly with as little creases to death in the Games, would I?

A sharp double knock at the door startles me until I remember that Effie told me dinner would be in two hours. It must have been two hours already. I opened the door to a waitress with flaming red hair. The waitress did not say anything to me, but just led me to where the dining room was on the train. "Oh, there you are, darling. How are you finding your room? It's just lovely isn't it? Anyway, dear, sit. Sit, come on, sit here!" her high-shrilled voice cut right through me as I sat down next to her in the seat she was pointing to. I looked at the table which was full to the brim of food. Food that I'd never seen before, food I'd had many times at home, food that I'd seen but not be able to afford and I'd never had any other drinks other than water or goats milk, so all of the strangely coloured liquids other than the water on the table were foreign to me. I gingerly tucked in to the food, releasing that these next few days would be my last few meals, so I had no need to hold back. After a long silence, Effie perked up, "Well, at least you two have decent manners. The pair last year ate everything with their hands, like complete savages or animals!" she gave a shudder at the thought. "It completely upset my digestion."

I frowned at Effie's remark. I racked my brain to the couple last year. A sixteen year old girl and the other a seventeen year old boy. They were both from the Seam like my family and had probably never had a full meal in their lives. My mother, however, taught Katniss and I how to use knives and forks at meal times nicely, and I'd always stuck to the rule of the knives and forks. I felt sorry for the two last year, they didn't have a chance at all and they both knew it. I felt suddenly defensive for them and how ill it was of Effie to speak of the dead. I look over at Peeta who seems to be thinking the same thoughts as I was and began to use his hands to eat the rest of his food, obviously to hurt Effie in some sort of way. I decided against it – as much as I would of loved to of joined Peeta, I would of felt much to terribly rude to of done that, but with some foods, I decided to eat with my fingers, and I licked them afterwards and Effie gave a look of pure disgust at us both. I smiled to myself.

When Effie, Peeta and I had finished dinner, Haymich finally arrived. He was carrying around a small class that had a thin brown liquid in with ice. I knew it was some kind of alcoholic beverage as when took the empty seat next to me I smelt the same smell my mother used in ointments that contained alcohol to clean the cuts and burns for her healing. I finally got a chance to have a good look at Haymich. He looked rough, with his beard that hadn't been cut for a week, his clothes creased and crinkled and his fingernails had a layer of black dirt that showed he hadn't showered for at least a week and a half. He didn't smell of anything but alcohol, though. He didn't seem to care he had missed dinner at all, he just wanted to refill his small silver flask I'd seen earlier in the car on the way to the train station.

Effie huffed at the sight of him but decided to carry on with her business and us. "Right, ok, we should probably watch the re-caps of the reapings so you get to see the other tributes." She stammered out. She was obviously uncomfortable by Haymich's drunken presence, but Haymich seem unaware of Effie's uneasiness and just followed us through to the living room part of the train. The television switched itself on and the Capitols seal and anthem played out in the room. I watched intensely at the screen, studying each and every tribute – not to size them up or see who my murder might be, just because I wanted to know a little bit about the people who would be dying beside me.

A tall, slim blonde girl volunteered first from District 1. She had blue orbs for eyes and her lips were pursed together in a sneaky smile, as if she so proud to be standing where she was, going to where she was going to. A thin but muscly boy volunteered with her from District 1, who looked just as sneaky and happy as his partner. They were both eighteen, and looked slightly lethal. The two tributes from District 2 were just about the same lethalness, but the girl who volunteered had brown hair and was quiet short, almost as short as me and the boy was very, very tall and bulky with muscles. He had blonde, spikey hair and I remembered his name to be 'Cato'.

District 3, 4,5 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10s tributes were all forgettable. They were all reaped and looked terrified – all apart from the girl from 5, who had light ginger hair and very distinguished facial features. She reminded me of a fox. I never caught her name because I was too busy studying her emotionless, heavy in thought face so I named her Foxface. She looked scary, but a nice, clever sort of scary. Not a District 1 and 2 scary.

District 11's tributes stood out to me. The boy who was reaped looked just as muscly and huge as Cato from District 2. He was black, and his eyes were yellow and his face looked as if he was ready to rip apart every Peacekeeper and cameramen there. His name was Tresh. The girl who was reaped must of only been twelve years old. She had lighter brown skin, more satiny brown compared to the boy next to her. She looked tiny against him, but didn't look scared at all. She looked as if she was trying to do what I did, and stay strong until the cameras were away. Nobody volunteered for her. I almost cried at seeing her go off to her death.

Our reapings came on the screen and I was forced to relive through what happened with Katniss and I. It made me realise how I'd never get to actually see her or hug her again. The tears that threatened to hit me before had surely hit me now and I was being engulfed in soft, silent sobs. Peeta turned to me and put his arm over my shoulder to comfort me. It was strange at first, but I knew he just wanted to make me feel a bit better and a little bit less alone so I hugged him back while his reaping was shown. He looked scared and vulnerable just like most of the other districts.

Effie starts talking about her wig looks funny in the lighting of District 12 and the cameras, but I could barely listen. Haymich was oblivious to the goings on and decided to stand up and leave, but not before leaving a huge pile of vomit on the wooden floor of the living room cart. He smiled at what he had spew up before tripping over in his walk to the door and crawling out, leaving a vomit trail.

Effie totted off after seeing Haymich throw up, calling for Capitol staff to clear the disgusting mess up. The look of disgrace on her face was darker and deeper than ever as she told us to go back to our compartments and by tomorrow afternoon, we'd be in the Capitol and we needed to at least look decent for the cameras at the train station there.

Peeta stood up and offered me his hand to help me up. I followed him back to my room where he opened the door for me. "No wonder we've never had a chance at all at these games, with him as a mentor. I bet he never even talks to the tributes some years," Peeta sighed as she leaned against my doorframe. I looked at him sadly, knowing that this statement was probably true.

"And the fact that we're weak and tiny against the District 1 and 2 tributes," I pointed out. They were all I had been thinking about mostly, apart from Katniss and the little girl from District 11. Peeta nodded back at me.

"Well, goodnight, Prim. I hope you're okay. I know it was a bit upsetting to see that all again." He patted my shoulder as he left and I shouted goodnight down the hall where he was walking to his room, causing him to look back and grin at me. I was right about my presumptions that he was a nice boy because his father was. Peeta was indeed a very lovely person. It was going to be awful to see him die. Hopefully he wouldn't die. Hopefully he could make it this year. If only Haymich would help us just a little bit.

**Thanks for reading! I know it's a little long and may seem a tad boring, but it will get more and more interesting as we get further into the Games. PLEASE REVIEW! I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHAT ****YOU ****WANT TO HAPPEN IN THE STORY! Thank you again! **


	4. Chapter 4 Arriving At The Capitol

I woke up late in the morning feeling very rested. _Best soak up all of this lovely feeling while it's here_, I thought,_ not like I'm going to get a chance to feel it again._ I turned over in the wonderfully comfortable bed, but the thought has disturbed all feelings of peace that I woke up with. I sat up slowly in my bed wondering what the Capitol would look like when we finally arrived there. I bet the streets would be permanently clean and there would be several colours on the pavements alone. I wondered if all the people would look as eccentric as Effie, or whether Effie was just very overboard eccentric because she was more famous than other Capitol citizens. I didn't even know if that's how it worked over there. I didn't know anything.

I looked in the closet for today's choice of clothes and picked out a deep orange dress, one that reminded me of the sunset. I matched it with a flat pair of plain royal blue shoes and a royal blue leather belt and my token bracelet. I then began to proceed to do my hair in two French braids when the waitress maid woman with the fiery red hair burst into my room. I turned around abruptly excepting her to say sorry and she excepted I would have been down at breakfast already, but she said nothing. She stood there looking slightly startled waiting for me to talk. After ten seconds of the awkward quietness, I couldn't bear it anymore. "Erm," I said. "Sorry, I'm supposed to be at breakfast? Did Effie send you?"

She shook her head in response and just when I thought she was about to talk, Effie pushed past her and placed her hands on her hips, "There you are, Primrose! Breakfast is ready. Your half an hour late."

"Why wouldn't she tell me that?" I pointed towards the waitress maid woman.

"She only takes orders. She doesn't talk to tributes or us. She just takes orders." She told me. I was about to ask another question but Effie began to literally push me out of my room towards breakfast, leaving the fiery red haired woman to tidy up the little mess that I had made that morning. "Now, I've finished breakfast and I'm going to be speaking to your stylists on the phone today before we reach the Capitol. If I were you, I would take this opportunity to talk to Haymich about the Games." And she totted off down a corridor, her wig wiggling away with her.

In the dining room where breakfast was being served, I sat next in the only empty seat next to Peeta. He passed me a strange brown liquid. It was a satiny brown that reminded me of the little girl in District 11's skin. I began to wonder how she was, if she was coping with it all. I wanted to meet her so badly, talk to her, ask her if she was okay. She looked so sweet and innocent, I wish she had never been reaped. I wonder how her family are. I wonder how my family are.

"It's nice." Said Peeta, interrupting my thoughts completely. "They call it hot chocolate."

Chocolate. I've only had chocolate a few times, which is more to say than a lot of people in District 12 I suppose. I got two squares of the beautiful stuff from my family, Gale and his family and Greasy Sae on my birthday. They had all saved up for it and got two squares of the rare beautiful stuff, for me on my 12th birthday. My 12th birthday – my first reaping year. I'd had it two or three other times too, but in tiny quantities, like the little chocolate pieces in the cookies Mr. Mellark gave me a few days ago and last year when it Katniss' friends birthday, Madge Undersee (the mayors daughter). She was given a whole bar of chocolate for her birthday, and she gave Katniss a piece at school. I was with Katniss at the time and she decided to give me some too. She was always a lovely girl, was Madge. That's another person I'll miss when I'm dead.

I took a little sip of the hot chocolate and my insides turned gooey and my taste buds exploded. I let out a very loud 'mmmmm' and Peeta chuckled at me. I watched him get bread roll from the basket of them that was placed in the middle of the table and rip a piece off and dip it in his hot chocolate. I copied him and it tasted even better. He chuckled again.

Haymich then got up out of his seat and headed over to the drinks that must have been laid out especially for him and opened the door, when Peeta's voice perked up. "Where are you going?" he questioned.

He stopped where he was and didn't turn around to face Peeta. "To my room."

"Don't you think you should talk to us? About our plan in the Games? Advice and how to get sponsors and stuff?" he asked.

"Don't you think you should give me a break? Most of you are so… eager." Haymich said drunkenly. Peeta stood up and began to walk over to Haymich, and tried to grab his drink, which led to him giving him a sturdy punch. Sure, he was drunk, but he gave a good drunken punch, because Peeta was out cold. Immediately, the inner healer inside me reached for my napkin and the ice dispenser. I wrapped up a bundle of ice and placed it on Peeta's face where the blow was. Peeta hadn't come to yet, but I could hopefully make the bruise show less, or not at all even with this fast of a treatment. I didn't even realise Haymich was pushing me off him. He took my homemade ice pack off me and said "No. Let it show."

"Why?" I asked.

Haymich sat back down at the table, reaching for a scone and the butter. "Having a fight before the actual Games may make him look tough in front of the other tributes." He explained abruptly. I didn't question this, as I had no knowledge of what was good in the Games and what wasn't, whereas Haymich had won this thing once and mentored ever since. He was sure to know what he was doing, even if he was an alcoholic. I sat back down at the table and we both waited for Peeta to come to. It didn't take long, only a few minutes. He stood up almost immediately when he came to and winced at the pain. He tried to reach for some ice to put on his bruise but Haymich told him the same thing he told me a few minutes ago.

"So, did I actually get a fighter this year?" he looked at Peeta closely. Peeta's face didn't change as Haymich studied it closely. "Stand up." He ordered Peeta. Sure enough, he began to study his physique as intently as he did his face. I studied his physique whilst Haymich did also and noticed he had more muscles than I thought. "Not too bad. Almost even nice. Once the stylist gets a hold of you, you might just scrub up okay."

"Thanks." Peeta said gruffly, not knowing whether it was a compliment or not. Haymich's face turned towards me and told me to stand up as well, even though we both knew there wasn't going to be much hope for me. Not as much as Peeta. Nowhere near as much as the children from District 1 and 2. Haymich sighed. He must get kids like me every year. Weak. No hope. Basically a walking corpse right now. Neither of us knew what to say and I began to gain an understanding of why Haymich must be such a no hope in mentoring, because we **were** no hopes. He just didn't want to tell us that.

"It's okay. I know." I told Haymich quietly. Haymich's look softened on me as he exhaled. I smelt the alcohol fumes on his breath and almost felt sick. He turned his gaze back to Peeta who was looking at us with a puzzled expression, obviously not working out both of our thoughts yet.

"Here's the deal kid," he said to Peeta. "I'll stay sober enough to help you train and give you advice for these Games, as long as you do everything I say." Peeta hesitated at first, although I didn't know why. I thought the deal was very fair. Haymich obviously had a drinking problem and if he was willing to put hope into Peeta, he obviously thought he could get far. Haymich must know these Games so well.

"Alright." Peeta agreed.

"So what can you do? What skills do you have?" Haymich asked.

"I don't know. I guess I'm good at camouflage – I am good at painting and decorating and things, so I guess that can help with camouflage." He began. "And I'm strong, too, I think. I can carry over 100 pounds." Haymich nodded in approval and began to eat his scone at last after applying a thick layer of jam.

"We can work with that. And you, sweetheart? Do you have any hidden skills your keeping quiet?" I heard the doubt running deep in his voice and I shook my head firmly and began to pour myself another hot chocolate. Having all these talks of tactics and skills in the Games just made me realise my death even more and more and more.

"She's lying. She's a gatherer. I've seen her with her sister picking berries from the forest. She's always telling her sister which ones you can eat and that you can't," he told Haymich. "And she's amazing at healing. She can make a medicine out of almost any plant!" Why was Peeta saying all this? What help was any of this going to be?

"It's not like I can heal someone to death, really, Peeta?" the words spew out of my mouth before I even had a chance to interpret them into something more kinder. I was shocked by how cold the words came out and the look on Peeta's face just shocked me even more how awful and nasty I must of sounded to him. "I'm sorry." I quickly apologised.

"Don't be. She's right, Peeta. The gathering may help with some food and the healing may help if you get small cuts, too, but it won't be much help in the arena. Sorry, sweetheart." Haymich told me. It was nothing I didn't know already. I looked back down at my hot chocolate and kept on dipping pieces of bread in. I tried to focus on the tastiness of the chocolate sinking into the sweet bread instead of Haymich and Peeta's conversation of tactics, but I couldn't zone out. I was just about to excuse myself when the whole train went completely dark. We'd entered a tunnel, and that could only mean one thing – we were just entering the Capitols train station. Light flooded through little windows in the tunnel as we got closer to train station platform, showing us glimpses of the Capitol at a time. Peeta and I slowly creepy up to the window on the train looking out at the tiny peeks the tunnel windows were offering us of views of the Capitol. Even though what I was seeing wasn't even half of the Capitol, it was stunningly beautiful and so huge. It was clean-looking like I'd expected and there were different colours around but they were mostly pastel colours. It made the city look even sweeter, even though I knew that at its heart was the centre of evil. President Snow and the Gamemakers. The people that did this to me and my family. To Peeta and his family. To all the other innocent districts tributes and their families.

All of a sudden light flooded the whole of the train and Peeta and I were faced with hundreds of colourful and eccentric looking faces. I was wrong about Effie only being eccentric looking because she was slightly more famous. All of those people were strange looking. One woman I saw had her hair pinned upwards as tall as it would go and it was coloured gold with a pattern of paint splatter in ten different colours. It dawned on me on how this must be normal to them, and how inhuman we must look towards them. Maybe that's how they feel so comfortable watching us die because we aren't normal humans to them.

The train stopped with a halt while the Capitol people were applauding us and shouting and laughing. I was blinded by so many camera flashes when I got off the train that I could barely see the Capitol people anymore, but I could hear them screaming "District 12!" or "Tributes! More!". Peeta was waving at them and smiling so I began to as well. I waved and smiled and waved and smiled until we were had to go into another car to ride to our hotel where we would be spending the next five and a half days until the Games. Five and a half days. Five and a half days to live. Five and a half days left until I die.

**Hey! Thanks for reading, I really hoped you liked this chapter! I can't wait to write out the interviews and the tribute training. PLEASE REVIEW! And tell me what you would like to see! I respond personally to all reviews and I love getting them. I hope you liked it! 3 **


	5. Chapter 5 The Capitol

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We arrived at the place we were staying in a short space of time. We piled out the car to be greeted by another huge mob of photographers and cameramen, but they were only with us for a few seconds as another Districts car pulled in and all of them practically ran over towards them. I saw a big bush of long platinum blonde hair get out of the left side of the car and recognised that it was the District 1 girl. I heard the cameramen and photographers call "Glimmer! Over here! Wave!" and I presumed that Glimmer must be her name. It was a pretty name to match a pretty girl.

We all clambered through the reception to the lift, not even checking into our floor with the receptionist but I'm pretty sure she knew we were coming. It still would have been nice of Effie to greet her, or tell her we were 12 so she knew who she was expecting. _Psht, _I thought _I'm here, about to be sent to my death in a matter of days and I'm still thinking of everybody else around me. _

Effie pushed one of the brightly lit buttons on the panel of the lift that said "12". When she pressed it, it began changing colours every second. First green, then red, then orange, then pink and purple and so many colours that I didn't even know the name of. "You get the number of your district for your floor, and since you're in 12, you get the penthouse!" Effie explained. She seems much too excited for a woman who had been coming here for years on end.

We reached the penthouse very swiftly, the lift seemed to move almost as fast as the train to the Capitol did. Everything in the Capitol was fast and new and so strange to me. The penthouse was breath-taking, and Effie could tell that Peeta and I were thinking this by the fact our jaws had practically dropped down to our feet. "I know, I know!" she exclaimed and began to walk off again. The three of us (Peeta, Haymich and I) followed her as if it was second nature. I was taking in all of my surroundings as I followed slowly. The dining room was on an above level to the living room. It had a plain, plastic ivory table with decorative pea green chairs surround it and flowers in oddly shaped red vases placed dotingly around the platform that was the dining room. The living room had again, plush ivory carpet that looked every so soft, as if the whole thing was made from cotton. It had a large leather black sofa in the middle with two smaller sofa's next to it and a black chic coffee table. All the sofa's pointed in the direction of a large television screen. The whole place was fancier than the train and the Justice Building put together. I never knew such fanciness could exist.

"These are your compartments. They're next to each other, so you'll just be a short walk down the hall from each other. You have an hour until dinner. I suggest you get yourselves ready," Effie ordered us. Peeta exchanged a glance with me and gave a small, obviously forced, smile. He wasn't enjoying this luxury. I guessed that he didn't really care at all for it. It wasn't needed, I guess, this amount of luxury. The money spent making this one room could last both our families enough food and water to last at least a year. Maybe even a year and a half if properly rationed. I walked into my compartment and was not at all surprised to see it was just as lovely as the rooms outside. The bed was right in the middle of the room and was absolutely huge. Literally twenty of me could of in this bed. It was covered in a deep red duvet and ivory pillows. The carpet was ivory also. I'm guessing the Capitol liked the colour ivory, as it seemed to be everywhere I went. I walked past the fancy shaped mirrors in the bedroom, glancing at my reflection, seeing how messy my hair had become over the day and that my dress was slightly creased now. That wouldn't look good for the cameras. I opened a black, heavy door that was patterned with flowers to my bathroom. It was a million different shades of blue inside and no other colour. It looked ever so beautiful. I looked in the shower and saw the same panel of buttons that was on my shower on the train. I stripped off my clothes and climbed into the shower straight away, wanting to try out all the different buttons. I realised I would never get to see what they all did before I died, but at least I'd get to see a few.

I pressed a button that was fourth on the second row. The smell of jasmines trickled from the water that came from the showerhead and the smell surrounded me. It was beautiful, it reminded me of one summer in the forest. I was fourteen and it was Katniss' 16th birthday and she took me into the forest. Normally, I didn't like going with Katniss to the forest. I hated seeing her kill the animals. I know I ate them afterwards, but I hated seeing it. I just wanted to run over and see if I could save their life. I'm such a sap like that, I hate that sometimes. Especially now. But anyway, Katniss took me into the forest and we climbed a tree together. It was very far out into the forest and I remember how scared I felt that someone would see us somehow. "Prim, the leaves of the tree will disguise us. It's okay, you're safe. I'd never let anything bad happen to you." She had reassured me. And I believed her, and nobody did find us. She and I stayed in the tree for hours talking and talking and Gale even joined us for an hour. He brought us a fresh loaf of bread which must have been worth at least 5 squirrels trade worth, but it was Katniss' birthday and it was all worth it. It was a wonderful day, and on our walk back home, I spotted a jasmine flower. It was the first jasmine flower of summer and I picked it. I threaded it into Katniss' classic braid she always wore and kissed her cheek. The scent of the jasmine flower followed us home and stayed with us for days. It was such a beautiful memory. I would never get anything like that again with her now.

I hadn't realised, but I had started crying. I missed Katniss so much. I didn't even know how she was right now. Or what she was doing. It made my heart ache so much. I ached for her hugs and her reassurance. I would do anything to be with her right now.

I stopped the showers water and climbed out and let the same swoop of hot air that had hit me on the train when I'd had my first Capitol shower. I was bone dry within a matter of minutes and I couldn't wait to see what clothes were waiting for me in my new cupboard. I found the cupboard that concealed the clothes and there was such a variety it shocked me. This was more clothes that I had ever seen ever, it was fifteen times more than my whole family owned put together. I didn't really think I had time to look through all the fancy dresses and shirts, so I chose a simple pair of black skin tight trousers and a loose heather coloured shirt. I Dutch braided my hair the same way Katniss would of if this was her. I missed her terribly still but the braid made me feel a little closer to her in some strange way.

I walked out of my room once I had finished getting ready for dinner and made my way back down the corridors of the penthouse to the dining room. Everybody was already gathered there, waiting for me to join so they could start eating. Nobody gave me a second glance as I joined them, but Peeta kept staring. He looked at my braid for a minute then continued to eat for another minute and then to my braid and so on.

Idle chatter went around the table, mainly from Effie talking about what the Capitol people have thought so far of us and asking us questions about what we like about the Capitol and things like that. Haymich interrupted her chitter chatter halfway through the main course. "Effie, nobody cares." She looked flabbergasted in a way, but in a similar way that gave me the impression he told her this a lot, or her offended her a lot. So much that must be used to it by now. "Look, kids. Training starts tomorrow morning so you're going to need a good night's sleep. It goes from 9am til 4pm and lasts for three days. My advice is not to show off your talents, so Peeta don't show your strength until the private scoring sessions with the Gamemakers. Prim, if you're good with plants, leave that station. Just, work on weapon skills a lot and learn some new survival techniques. Ok?"

I nodded firmly, praying that somehow I would find a magic talent over the next three days and it would be some sort of help at least. A knot of doubt and nerves tied tightly in my stomach putting me off my food. I pushed my meal away from me but Haymich glared at me. "You ought to eat all you can. You're going to need all the extra food and fat for the arena. It's not as easy to live off berries as you might think sweetheart," he told me, even though that is not what I was thinking at all.

"Why have we got to stay away from our skills?" Peeta asked.

Haymich sighed, obviously getting tired with the amount of chatter he had to be going through and the little amount of alcohol through his bloodstream at the moment. "Because you don't want the other tributes seeing what you can do. They'll think of a way to use it against you in the arena. Just, learn something new. Throw a knife, shoot a bow. Whatever." The words 'shoot a bow' practically shot a bow in my heart. Katniss.

I looked over at Peeta because I thought he would realise that this would have an effect on me and to see a comforting smile, but I received none of the like. His face was set in stone just like I'm sure mine was too. His eyes were practically brimming with tears and I could see he was trying to hold them back. He exhaled, long and hard before sniffing up any tears that were trying to get their way out of him. He looked back at me and his eyes kept switching from eyes to my braid. He looked away after a few seconds and resumed to eat. Haymich was looking at us both with a very perplexed look on his face, he was trying to work out what he said that had affected us so much. Effie was utterly oblivious. In a normal situation, I would of thought of something to say to break the silence and the mania of thoughts that were twirling around the table, but my mind was too stuck on Katniss and why on Earth Peeta was so affected by Haymich's comment.

When I couldn't think anymore, I dismissed myself, ignoring looks from Effie and Haymich. Peeta quickly dismissed himself too and we walked together through the corridors back to our rooms. We both ushered ourselves into our rooms in silence. We didn't exchange a smile or a goodnight or even a look. I so wanted to go out my room and to Peeta's and question him on his reactions to the Katniss related remark but I told myself it probably wasn't best to as he seemed so upset. But that didn't mean I was just going to drop it. I wanted to know. I need to know. Was there something my sister was hiding from me? Or something the bakers son was hiding from me about my sister?


	6. Chapter 6 The Stylists

I was woken up by the shrill sounds of Effie saying "It's a big, big, big day!". I rubbed my eyes and felt immediately tired as soon as I stood up as I didn't sleep very well that night. I didn't eat very well that morning either – I was much too frightened of what this day would hold to even hold down anything. I drank a cup of hot chocolate and had half a bread roll. Peeta had just about the same amount of food as me. We were both riddled with fear of training and the tributes parade tonight. Effie was right that it was going to be a big, big, big day. I was not in the mood for a big, big, big day.

As soon as Peeta and I finished our miniscule breakfast, we were sent away to the training centre. We were the last pair to get there as everybody else seemed to had arrived very early. This was the first moment I had got to actually see the faces of the people who were going to kill me. My first look at the them and I was shocked by how much bigger the District 1 and 2 tributes actually were compared to on a television screen. My eyes passed the next two districts until I set my eyes on the girl I'd nicknamed Foxface. She was even Foxface-er than on I'd seen on screen as well. She looked ever so cunning and the tributes from 1 and 2 seemed to of noticed this as well as they were exchanging glances at her and back at their other tributes. They seemed to of formed an alliance with each other already in the first ten minutes of meeting one another. I wasn't surprised, from since I'd been old enough to watch the Games, the tributes from 1 and 2 had always been in alliances. They were always fitter and looked much more well fed than the other tributes. I had never understood why.

I scanned over the next group of tributes, who looked just like they could be from 12. They were all so slim and had the same terrified expression on their faces. I then turned to the tributes from 11, the ones who had really caught my attention the night Effie, Haymich, Peeta and I watched the re-cap of the reapings. The boy wasn't as large as I thought he had been. He was large, still, but not as large as the boys from 1 and 2. Especially the boy from 2, who I remembered the name to be Cato. He looked a little worried, but still had a firm facial expression. He was of average height and his hair was short and pitch black. He and the little girl were standing very close. It struck to me that he might be protecting her while he can, considering she was only 12 and so little. I then studied the little girl. Her expression was just like the boy with her. Firm, but slightly worried. A little more worried than the boy looked. She was ever so short. Shorter than me, and I was one of the shortest girls back at 12. Her hair was frizzy and black, also and just past her shoulders. I felt ever so fond of her. I think it was sympathy. I wondered if she would like to become allies with me, but I had no idea how to suggest that sort of thing to a person. I didn't know if I saw the point in it because she was probably just going to die. But then again, so was I. Maybe there was no harm making a friend as I died, especially one so young.

A woman swiftly entered the training centre. "I'm going to observe you all and monitor you all these next three days." She introduced. "It is important you pay attention in the next three days. It could mean the matter between life and death. There are four mandatory classes but after that you can go to what you want. My advice is, don't ignore the survival classes. Everybody wants to grab a sword but most of you will die of natural causes." And with that, she walked away from us, leaving us all to get to what we wanted and needed to do.

My first day at the training centre was simple. I did all the mandatory classes and then worked in survival skills until lunch. At lunch, the tributes from 1 and 2 all sat together, while most other tributes sat with their district partner. I sat on the other end of the table with District 11. I kept my distance, but they didn't seem to really notice or pay much attention to me. They didn't talk much, just of what they had done this morning. Peeta sat by himself on a table. I felt rather guilty leaving him by himself, but I didn't even think he'd want to sit near me knowing that he could be killing me soon.

After lunch, I did work in weapons. I didn't do very well at all. I tried throwing knifes, but I didn't even hit the target. I used the using the sword but I couldn't even get the sword all the way through the target. I tried picking up and throwing weights but I couldn't even get the first weight across the hall. I looked at the bow and arrow, but I couldn't face using it. I couldn't even face looking at it. I noticed Peeta looking at it from time to time, his facing falling every time he saw it. I couldn't understand why at all still, but right now wasn't the time to think of these things.

I was relieved by the time that it was 4pm and training was over. I must of looked so weak today in front of everybody today. I hated myself so much for being such a weakling. I wish I was more like Katniss. She was so much stronger than me. Everybody here was, including the little girl from 11. I'd kept an eye on her throughout the day. She had the same plan as me, to try and do everything and anything before the Games began, but she was much better than me. How embarrassing, a 12 year old better than me and I was three years older than her. I knew for sure now that I was going to die in at least the first twelve hours of the games.

Peeta and I met at the end of training and were greeted by Haymich and Effie. They escorted us to the car that would take us to the stylists centre where they give all the tributes makeovers for the Tributes Parade tonight. "Tonight, you two have to let the stylists do whatever they want to you. Don't object to whatever they think is best for you." Haymich told us through the car ride. He also explained how important tonight was for us. It would be the first time the sponsors got to meet us properly and see how well we scrubbed up. "The nicer you appear, the more sponsors you'll get." He told us. This made me worry, because I never thought of myself of a pretty girl. My family, Greasy Sae and the Hawthornes often told me I was a doll, but I never believed them. They have to say these things because they are all practically my family. I just hoped the stylists could work some sort of amazing magic trick tonight.

When we got to the stylists centre every tribute was taken into separate rooms down a long corridor. Because Peeta and I were in 12, we had to walk down to very end of the long corridor. My legs were aching by the end of the walk. Training all day and now walking almost what seemed like 5 miles long of corridor had made me ever so tired. I just wanted to be able to crawl into my bed at home cuddling Buttercup. Oh Buttercup. I missed Buttercup too. I made a mental note to add Buttercup to the list of people (or cats) I would miss when I was dead.

Effie shoved me and Peeta in our separate rooms and left. I was surrounded by a group three stylists. Two were women, one was a man. One woman had a pink afro wig like Effie did, and the other had very short bright blue hair. They both wore fake eyelashes that were just about as long as my foot, and their nails were decorated with different fanciful patterns on each nail. The man was just as strange looking as the two women to me. He had mid-length hair that had been coloured with black and white stripes. His skin was a light green which made it look like he was going to throw up any minute. I began to pray that they wouldn't dye my skin awful colours like they have. They didn't introduce themselves to me before telling me to strip down to my undergarments so they could get to work. They must have been on a very tight schedule, because they wasted no time. As soon as I had stripped down, they told me to lay on a very cold metal table and lie still. "We're going to remove all the hair off your body. It's going to hurt a little bit." The woman with the pink afro wig warned me. She picked up a small bowl that was filled with a thick brown liquid. The other woman with the short bright blue hair told me it was called 'wax'. She began to paint it onto my legs over the hair. The green skinned man then handed her little cotton strips of paper. She placed it onto the wax stuff and firmly placed it down before ripping it off my leg. Before I could help it, a yelp of pain escaped from my lips. The three stylists looked at me with a bored expression before continuing. They obviously got a lot of these pain yelps. For the rest of the hair removal time, I bit my tongue hard to stop myself from crying out in pain again. This seemed to please my stylists. "We don't like complainers. They get very annoying." The woman with the pink afro wig told me again.

No conversation went on after that throughout the rest of the beautifying. I had a shower after they removed all other hair on my arms and under my arms to try and cool down the follicles that just got hair ripped out of them nastily. They dressed me in a thin robe to cover my nakedness and afterwards, they shaped and put a clear liquid over my nails. The liquid dried on my nails after a few minutes of leaving them be and then they did my toe nails. After what felt like a very long, excruciating task they finally told me I could see the main stylist who's name they told me was Cinna. They left me on the cold metal table in the thin robe waiting for Cinna. It wasn't long before he entered the room and I was shocked by his appearance, not because it was crazy like the other stylists, but because he was so normal looking. He was wearing a black button up shirt and black trousers. His hair was cut short and was also black. The only way you could tell he was from the Capitol was how clean and posh he looked, as well as the gold eyeliner he was wearing.

"I'm Cinna." He introduced himself. "I'm your stylist. It's my first year working in the Games. I'm terribly sorry this happened to you."

"I'm Prim." I introduced back, but he nodded. He must of already knew that. "And of course they gave you 12 if it's your first year."

"I asked for 12." He corrected me. Before my face could register the shock going through my system and ask him why he would do that. 12 tributes never won, nobody wanted 12, they wanted a district that had at least some chance of winning. "Now, tonight's the Tributes Parade and they're going to be showing you off to the world. They normally dress you up in clothes that are related to your district."

"Yeah, and we're always coal miners." I said as I thought back to the other years of the Games. Our districts outfits were always so boring and forgettable. You could tell that over the past three or four years, the stylists had been trying harder and harder to make it less awful but nothing worked. Two years ago, the two tributes from 12 came out their chariot in the parade stark naked wearing nothing but coal miners boots while their bodies were covered in coal dust. It was ever so tacky and disgusted me.

"Yeah but you see, Prim, I don't want to do that. The whole coal miners bit is so overplayed." He sighed heavily. "Are you afraid of fire?"


	7. Chapter 7 The Tributes Parade

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The next thing I knew I was standing in a horse driven chariot at the back of the line of 11 other horse driven chariots. I covered from my collar bones down to my ankles with a black unitard. I had big sturdy black boots that made me feel very firm in the rocky chariot. I had a thin black flowing cape attached to my shoulders and my hair was in a Dutch braid like Katniss would have had it. I told Cinna to do this especially and he didn't even ask why, he just followed my orders. I hope he wouldn't tell Haymich that I had told him to do this, because Haymich told me to follow all of his orders but I couldn't be bothered with thoughts like that right now – I just wanted Katniss to see I had a part of her with me on this night in the form of her braid. I hoped she would see that.

Peeta was dressed the exact same as me. He didn't look frightened at all. He looked much more like he was trying to keep any emotion he had underneath him and away from the cameras. He reminded me suddenly of Katniss because that is the exact same thing she would of done.

A cameraman appeared from nowhere and gave a signal to the tributes and stylists that it was now exactly 60 seconds until the first chariot. Cinna appeared next to me with a woman who was dressed as plainly as Cinna. I guessed this was Peeta's main stylist. "You look fabulous. Both of you." He told us. "Now I'm going to need you to pull off your capes soon. This will activate the fire."

The woman who I'd guessed was Peeta's stylist began to talk. "It's not real fire, its synthetic." her voice was very light. It was sweet sounding and reminded me of a feather. She seemed like such a nice woman, just like Cinna was a nice man. I decided I liked them both. They talked to Peeta and I like we were just normal people, not like we were going to die in a few days or like we were royalty because we were going into the Games and they never ever talked to us like we were children either. I added them to the list of people I would miss them when I was dead even though they were from the Capitol.

"30 seconds!" the cameraman shouted over at us. Peeta's stylist began clapping excitedly. Her and Cinna were so proud of their fire creation. I looked over at the other tributes. They were dressed quiet traditionally in the normal themed costumes that they wore almost every year with a few tweaks from the stylists. I looked at the chariot in front of ours and noticed how small Rue was compared to the boy from her district. She looked ever so small and venerable compared to him, how could the stylists not see that? Is that how they really wanted to portray her to the other tributes? I looked at the boy from her district and noticed how smart he looked. He looked appealing in his agriculture themed outfit, but still pretty scary. I wondered what his name was.

My thoughts were interrupted by Cinna telling Peeta and I that it would be best to hold hands appear like a strong team together. "I don't want District 12 to be overlooked this year. You need to appear as strong as you can." He told us. He then pulled off our capes, causing the synthetic fire to explode in flames from our backs. I could barely see the flames right now and I didn't want to concentrate on the strange ticking sensation the fake flames gave me across my back so I just nodded and grabbed Peeta's hand. I noticed how uncomfortable he looked with it. He hadn't looked at me for almost a whole day, not even a sideways glance at me. Had I done something wrong? I squeezed his hand to try and get some sort of response from him, but all he did was put his fingers in-between mine so our hands fit together. I kept looking at him until our chariot started moving and startled me, causing me to wobble and squeeze his hand terribly tight. He looked at our hands and he gave me a reassuring tiny squeeze back, but he still didn't look at me.

The Capitol people began screaming at us and shouting out names almost immediately the second we came out. I began to wave to them, causing them to scream even louder in excitement. Primrose Everdeen, the angel on fire, waving. Peeta began to wave to and blow kisses to the women, who about fainted. I looked over at the huge television screen that showed us what the people at home would see. I saw me on the screen waving and smiling, with my braid swaying from side to side and for the first time I got to see how truly beautiful I looked right now. I was glowing. The flames brought out the colour in my skin, causing me to look less pale. My eyes were shining. I could bet Katniss would be proud of me right now. I hoped she would be.

The crowd threw roses at us and kept on shouting for us until President Snow interrupted them to make his yearly welcome speech to the tributes of the Games. He was sitting in the middle chair in a large gold balcony which had red carpet surrounding it. It looked very grand. The Capitol anthem played out cutting off the screams of the crowd before he began his speech. "Welcome." His voice boomed. "Welcome. Tributes. We welcome you. We salute your courage and your sacrifice." The crowd were cheering intently again at each of his words. "And we wish you," he continued "Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour." The crowd screams got louder and louder as exited the Parade Hall and the tributes got off their chariots and returned to their mentors and stylists..

Cinna extinguished our flames from our backs as Effie, Haymich and Peeta's stylist were chatting excitedly about what an amazing impression we had made back then. "You will certainly not be forgotten in a long time, you two." Cinna said with a smile. His smile was so warm and refreshing from the forced ones I normally got from Peeta and others that it caused me to send a genuine smile back at him.

"Are you sure you should be near an open flame?" Peeta asked Haymich coldly. Boy, what had gotten into him? He really wasn't happy at all. I wish I knew what had caused his anger or sadness (or both) inside of him, but his remark to Haymich make me let out a little giggle. I was in such a good mood for a girl who was going to die in less than four days.

"Fake flame." Haymich corrected him cleverly, causing Peeta to feel a little embarrassed. "We should probably head back. We're getting too much attention from other districts now." Haymich said, pointing his head in the direction of the boy from 2, Cato, who was staring at us. We'd stolen his limelight, and he wasn't happy.

When we returned back to our penthouse after a short ride in the car again, Peeta headed to his room without any food. He said he was too tired and wanted to eat in his room tonight. I wanted so much to go after him and talk to him, I wanted to know why he was acting the way he was. Was it me? Or Haymich? Or Effie? Or just the Games? Or, maybe was it Katniss? No. Why would it be Katniss? They'd never even spoken. I didn't understand why I thought he was fixated with her. Maybe it was just me missing her so much that it made me see her in every scenario possible - but that didn't cover why he was so upset by the bow and arrow comment by Haymich and why he seemed so obsessed with my Katniss style braid that I wore to dinner.

I decided to let my hunger get the better of my curiosity as I sat down to dinner. I stuffed my face senseless with many different arrays of food then excused myself so I could go to sleep. I was so tired, goodness knows how I was going to survive with the lack of sleep mixed with the constant movement I'd have to go through in the Games. That is, if I ever got through the first twelve hours of it.

I climbed into bed and before I went to sleep, I told myself that after tonight's beautiful outfit, I would get a few sponsors. Maybe I'd last twenty-four hours in the Games, not twelve. Just maybe. And with that thought, I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt of all the happy memories I'd had before I got reaped. I never even realised how beautiful my life was before all of this.


	8. Chapter 8 The Alliance

**Hey again :-) I know I'm updating a lot but I'm on study leave at the moment so I got a lot of spare time that I should really be using to revise but I can't seem to find the effort at the moment ugh! :-( I just want to say, thanks for the reviews so much, I know I always say this but I love getting them and a huge thanks to **_**mrsodairmocking132 **_**and **_**Jacobycake1100 **_**for their constant reviews they always give me and to anybody who 'favourite' my story. You rock, okay.. Anyway, enjoy the next chapter! Things are going to be getting interesting! And don't forget to tell me what YOU want to happen! Thanks 3**

The days was training again, and it was basically the same as yesterdays. I woke up, ate breakfast with Haymich, Effie, Peeta and the stylists, think about Katniss and my mother, went to training, did survival skills until lunch, think about Katniss and my mother, ate lunch on the same table as District 11 but sitting a far enough distance from them to not draw too much attention to myself while Peeta ate on his own, did weapon training until 4pm, went back to the penthouse, had dinner, watched Peeta and Haymich talk tactics, watch Peeta avoid my gaze all evening, think about Katniss and my mother, go to sleep. When I woke up, I began to do my routine as normal up until lunch. I sat on the same table as District 11 as normal but today, they spoke to me. The boy was the first to start conversation after a few minutes of eating lunch quietly. "Why do you sit here, 12? Why don't you sit with him?" he asked gruffly. His voice was very low, but he didn't sound angry, just puzzled. I would be puzzled too, if it was me and Peeta and someone kept sitting with us.

I began to open my mouth and close my mouth, unsure what to say or whether just to tell the truth or not. I decided to tell the truth. I was going to die in two more days anyway, so. "Because I thought the little girl was interesting," I told the boy.

"I'm not surprised. You seem to have that sort of empathy in you." The boy said, still sound very gruff. Maybe his gruff-ness was just his normal voice. It reinforced impression to me that he was a strong boy, but I was pretty sure of that after watching him throw about the weights and knifes in training. I looked at the little girl who was staring at me. Her big brown eyes were fixated on me. "Her names Rue. I'm Tresh." He told me.

"I'm Primrose."

It was quiet for a few minutes as we resumed eating, but the little girl - who's name I'd know known to be Rue – perked up and spoke to me for the first time. "You could of said something to us. You've been sitting here for days and you haven't even said hello." She asked boldly. Her voice was chirpy, like a bird, and yet sweet like sugar as well. It was a beautiful tiny voice for a beautiful tiny girl. I was growing fonder and fonder of this girl.

"I don't know. I'm not that good at making friends," I stuttered. Her rhetorical question caught me off guard slightly. I didn't really know why I hadn't spoken to them. Apart from that the boy kind of scared me a little bit, but I wouldn't tell her that right now with his yellow eyes staring intently at me.

"Well, Primrose, staying quiet and looking awkward isn't a good start." Tresh said. "But, neither is trying to make friends before we all kill each other." And with that, he walked away. I was puzzled with him. I couldn't figure him out. I was pretty sure I had everybody here worked out just a little bit. Everybody from 1 and 2 were lethal and basically were very arrogant with no sentiment or empathy whatsoever. Everybody from 3, 4, the boy from 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 seemed very much like me – naturally nervous and just missing their families and probably were embracing their deaths soon. The girl from 5 was very, very clever and I'd come to the conclusion she had actually had a chance of winning after watching her for some part of these days. I'd figured out that Rue from 11 was innocent, but also clever, Peeta from my district was strong and probably would get far but not win but Tresh from 11 was a big question mark with me. I didn't know who he was at all.

I realised I had been quiet for a few minutes after Tresh left until Rue awoke me from my thoughts. I seemed to be very enclosed in my thoughts nowadays. "Don't get upset about him, he may seem like he is big and tough but inside, he's very sweet. He has a big heart, he just doesn't like to show it. Not right now, anyway, in here." She told me. Each word Rue said made me grow fonder and fonder of her. She reminded me of myself so much. I knew Katniss would like her. Katniss and her would probably be great friends. "So, why did you think I was interesting?"

I shrugged, not wanting to admit that it's because she looked so much weaker and I felt the inner protector inside me call for her. "I don't know. You look so… I don't know how to word it. You just look so confident for a girl who… who seems to have a lesser advantage compared to the other tributes."

She smiled down at her food and nodded. "Cool. Good. Tresh taught me I should look confident and that it should have that effect on people. It might get me sponsors."

"I've never really thought of it like that." I said. I began thinking back, racking my brains to every time I saw her, remembering how I'd thought of her strange confidence oozing from the little girl. I began nodding again. "Yeah, Tresh is right."

We ate in silence together until everybody was allowed to go back into training. It suddenly dawned on me that this was my last training session, my private scoring sessions with the Gamemakers, then it would be the interviews and I'd be running away from the Cornucopia at the games before I knew it. The suddenness of it all hit me with a great force. My breathing got slightly quicker and I became engulfed by panic. It wasn't until Rue said something to me that brought me back into reality. "Are you okay, Primrose?"

"Yes." I said, trying to control my breathing. What just happened to me? "And call me Prim. It's easier and shorter."

"Do you want to go to knives together?" she asked softly. I was a little startled by her question. Did this mean she wanted to be allies with me? Or just she wanted to make sure I was okay after my panic? I shook the thoughts away from me, I didn't want to be thinking right now, I just wanted to be training hard in weapons. I needed to know how to use one, not that I wanted to kill anybody. But I'm sure when the time came, just like anybody else, I'd have to kill. I couldn't imagine doing it.

I remembered Rue suddenly and nodded and led the way over to knifes. We spent the rest of the afternoon until 4pm wandering around going to all the different weapon training areas that we could in the short space of time we had left. I felt almost sad when training ended, I was beginning to talk to Rue a little more as the time passed and I found out that she was very good at running and climbing and in the little spare time she got, she loved to sing and make music with her family. I told her about Katniss and she said she felt really sad when she saw what happened at the reapings between us. I also told her about my love for healing and how good I was with plants.

"Well, I guess I'll see you in the interviews. Good luck in your private sessions, Rue." I told her when the loud buzzer went, signalling that training was over. I put my hand on her shoulder and began to walk to meet Peeta like usual so we could go back to the penthouse with Effie and Haymich, but Rue grabbed my wrist. "What?" I asked.

"Allies?"

A smile crept up on my face at the one word she just spoke. She was looking up at me, with so much vulnerability painted on her face. "Of course, Rue." The vulnerability washed away from her face and was replaced with a huge smile. She literally skipped off to go back to her mentors and Tresh. I wonder if she would tell them that we were going to be allies.

On my way back in the car to the penthouse I began wondering whether being allies with Rue would extend my lifespan in the Games. I wondered if being allies with Rue would make Katniss happy. I decided it would because Rue was a nice girl, and Katniss would of probably chosen to ally with her if she was here instead of me. In the car, I looked over at Peeta. He was still very quiet and keeping himself to himself. I didn't know whether I should try to talk to him later or not, or whether that may just be a bad idea considering the Games were beginning in two days. My stomach churned at the thought of the Games.

That night, I couldn't turn my thoughts off at all. My mind would switch between what the Games might hold, how my family might be feeling back home in 12, how Gale was holding up, whether Gale was helping Katniss in any sort of way and the one thought that seemed to linger in the back of my brain was why Peeta was acting the way he was acting. I'd never known him so angry. Or sad. Whenever I'd seen him, he always looked happy. Unless he was with his mother, he was always a little bit off when he was with his mother, but I guessed that not every mother and son had a good relationship. She wasn't a nice woman anyway. But, nevertheless, he always seemed okay. At school, he'd always seemed very happy. What was with this new Peeta? The Games seemed to be turning him into something he wasn't. I wished very hard when I went to sleep that the Games would not do that to me.


	9. Chapter 9 The Secret Comes Out

I woke up late that morning after a pretty restless night's sleep. I turned over in the huge bed to the clock that showed me it just past 11am. _Woah,_ I thought. _It's late._ I got moving pretty quickly, until I realised this day would be fairly relaxing compared the ones in the past week and the ones after in the future I would have to face. Today was the private scoring sessions day and I had no idea what I was going to do. I could show my skills with berries and leaves and stuff, but I didn't know what I'd do weapon wise. I hadn't form a magical talent like I had hoped and I wasn't even decent in any of the weapons I'd tried. I was definitely going to get a famous District 12 low score.

I clambered into the shower and pressed the seventh button on the tenth row downwards and a disgusting smell came from the showerhead. I knew the smell the second it came out. Coffee. I hate the smell of coffee. I'd smelt it a few times coming from the small café in the town square in District 12 and Effie had cups of coffee every morning at breakfast and every time she finished her dinner. I quickly pressed another button, not paying much attention to which one it was, and the delicious smell of freshly baked bread came out from the showerhead this time. It reminded me of the bakery in District 12 this time. It seemed like every single one of these buttons awoke a memory. I wondered if Peeta had found this button yet. I knew for a fact he would like it. I washed in the yummy scent realising I was in fact very hungry. I'd probably missed breakfast, but I didn't mind all too much. I would just engorge myself at lunch.

After getting out the shower and drying off, I chose a red pair of trousers and a skin tight white t-shirt with a woolly black cardigan and clasped on my token bracelet that Hazelle, Gales mother, had given me. I braided my hair in the same way Katniss could. It had become a nice comfort for me. I wanted to stick simple today, but whatever clothes I picked seemed to look fabulous. All the clothes were fabulous. Trust the Capitol. It may be ever so evil, but it was full of beauty. Even the people who were so over the top with their fashion, still found a way to look beautiful in their own unique style.

I walked down to the dining room to be greeted by Haymich and Peeta. I didn't know where Effie was, but I didn't complain. I wasn't in the mood for Effie right now. Her shrill voice and constant excitement was beginning to wear me out. I sat down and was happy to see breakfast was still on the table. Everybody must have had a lie in bed today. It was the only one that Peeta and I were going to get for a while. Haymich joined me into the conversation the minute I sat down. "Right. We were just talking about the private scoring sessions today, sweetheart." I nodded, listening to him as I poured a piping hot chocolate into a very large mug, grabbing some bread rolls and eating a scrambled egg. I was really going to stuff myself today. I needed the energy – I knew the private sessions were going to take all energy out of me. "What are you planning to do?"

I looked at Peeta and wondered whether he should be here to hear what I was going to do in my **private **sessions, but then I realised there wasn't much he didn't already know about my lack of skills. "Play with some plants, choose some berries. I haven't really got a clue about the weapon side of it." I admitted.

Haymich sighed. He must have been wishing for a miracle too. _No such luck there, Haymich. _I thought to myself as I tucked into my eggs. They were light and creamy and warm. It was like my stomach was getting a hug. I added eating scrambled eggs to the list of things I would miss when I'm dead. And drinking hot chocolate with bread rolls. Not that I did much of that anyway. "Well, just do what you can. Just try anything that might get their attention. Think outside the box." He told me. I wasn't really listening at this point. We both knew it was no hope, especially me. Haymich hadn't seen me in the training sessions, but if he did, he would be sure there was no hope at all for me. He must have been reading my mind because he suddenly leaned in over the table to me, very close. I could feel his breath hitting my face, but it was clean of an alcohol stench. That's a first. "Don't give up on yourself, sweetheart. You just need to actually try."

The words cut through me like a knife. What did he mean, actually try? What had I been doing so far? I'd been trying as hard as I could, right? I had been going to all the weapons (apart from the bow and arrow, I still couldn't face that) and trying all the survival skills I could. How dare he think that I don't try… I decided not to dwell on it, there was no point. I needed Haymich for these Games and keeping on a good side of him would be imperative. I continued eating on, topping up my eggs on my plate until I was so full of food I thought I could have been sick. It was very quiet on the table after Haymich made his comment about actually trying. I hated it being so quiet.

I looked over at Peeta for the first time this morning and he didn't meet my gaze. I sighed heavily. I wondered what had changed on him. He used to be smiley to me when we first got here. It changed ever since I wore Katniss' braid. His face changed that night when he looked at me. How he kept looking at me. He seemed almost upset by it. And how he reacted when Haymich mentioned the bow and arrow. Upset. He reacted upset. Upset. Why would he be upset?

For the first time in the past few days, I really felt like thinking hard. I wanted to put these pieces together before the private session. I needed to know what was wrong with Peeta before I went into the sessions else I wouldn't be able to concentrate. It had been the thing that had been niggling at the back of my mind for the past few days now. The thing that's been putting me off from thinking like me. From trying. Trying like Haymich said I needed to try. _God damn you, Peeta Mellark!_

I ran to my room without even dismissing myself. I began to sprint away from the dining room back to my room. I locked the door and climbed under the covers of my bed. I lay in a ball and began to think. _Ok, Prim. Think. _

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset._

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset. _

Where they friends?

No, they'd never talked.

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset._

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset_.

How do you know they'd never talked?

Because she would been fonder of him. She's never been fond of him. She always avoided him. I'd noticed that before. I never took note of it, I just presumed it was coincidence.

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset._

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset. _

Why wasn't she fond of him?

I don't know. He must of done something.

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset._

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset. _

What could of he done that made her not fond on him? Something nasty?

No. Katniss didn't work like that. If he did do something nasty, she would of told someone.

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset._

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset. _

Something nice?

Yes. Katniss worked like that. She didn't like to owe people when they did good deeds for her.

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset._

_Braid. Bow and arrow. Katniss. Upset. _

What good deed could Peeta of possible done for Katniss?

Helped her in school work, picked up an arrow or a piece of food or clothing she may of dropped somewhere in the district, given her food. **Given her food.**

I had finally hit a point of understanding - a tiny point, just a guess – when there was a knock on my door. It wasn't the familiar sharp knock that Effie would give, else I would of ignored it, so I went over and opened. Surprisingly enough, Peeta stood at my door looking slightly concerned. It was the first time he'd even looked at me in about three days. "Hey." I said breathlessly. He walked into my room and I closed the door. We sat together on the bed in an awkward quiet until he finally spoke.

"What happened with you?"

"What happened with YOU?" I asked. I just wanted to get down to the point with him now. I didn't want to beat around the bush. There wasn't enough time left in my life to do that.

Peeta didn't look puzzled at all. He must of known it was coming. Maybe that's why he's been ignoring me since he reacted so much to the Katniss references. He didn't want to be asked about it. What had changed now? After a few minutes of quiet he exhaled deeply. "Isn't it obvious?" I shook my head. It wasn't obvious at all. Sure, it may have been if I had been up to thinking as intensely as I did just a few minutes before he entered my room, but it still wasn't obvious to me yet. Another few minutes passed before Peeta spoke again. "I'm in love with her, Prim. I always have been." He looked at me with his big blue orb eyes. They were softening, threating to flood with tears any second. I didn't know what to say. I sat there, my mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Now he had told me, it was obvious. My mind flashbacked to the times I'd seen them in the same rooms at school. Him, staring at her and daydreaming. Her, avoiding his gaze. Him, looking at her longing whenever he got a glimpse of her. Her, pretending like she didn't know. I began to remember what I had thought of when I clambered into bed after breakfast. Had he done a good deed for her like I had thought? I didn't know how to ask, really, so I just asked him why he loved her and when he started to.

"Well, since I've first met her really. I remember when it was the first day of school and our teacher said 'Who knows the valley song?' and her hand shot straight up," a smile crept on his face. I bet he has dreamt of that day ever since it happened. My heart softened. I could practically feel his love for her myself. "Ever since that day, I watched her watch home from school every day. Every day."

I couldn't believe I'd never realised sooner. Now he had told his secret to me, it was completely and utterly obvious. I remember seeing him when I walked home with Katniss, but I didn't take any notice. I never really did to him. He then continued talking to me about her. "I remember your first day of school too. How you walked together. You looked so different. I thought she was just making friends with the new years at first and I remember thinking about how lovely that was of her." He smirked. I let him talk endless memories, which was ever so comforting, of her until he said "One day, I gave her some bread too. I think about that all the time." _Bingo! _I thought. _The good deed. _

"Tell me about it." I said.

He smiled. He liked talking about her so much. I could see how much of a weight was being lifted off his shoulders already. I could see the real Peeta Mellark. The one that I'd seen a few times in the District in the bakery. "Well, it was raining and my mother was screaming at a kid outside, calling them a seam brat. I went outside to see who she was shouting at, I wanted to try and calm her down a little bit, but she was totally freaking out and told me to get back inside. I saw that it was Katniss outside she was screaming at and I decided to do something I would of never done for anybody else…" he continued. "I went inside to the bread ovens and turned the temperature up on purpose. I then shouted to my Mother that it was burning. She may of hit me afterwards, but I saved Katniss from having no dinner that night and that means more to me than anything."

I then flashbacked to the night Katniss brought home that soggy, slightly burnt bread. She told us she'd found it outside behind the bakery in the bins. I remember how Mother was mad at her in some ways because she didn't want her children to be snooping in bins. I remember Katniss arguing with her, saying that if she hadn't of zoned out after Fathers death in the first place, she wouldn't of needed to. It hit me now that she lied about where she got the bread. We all remembered that bread. It saved our lives. We would of starved to death if it wasn't for that bread.

"Peeta…" I began. "It wasn't just no dinner that night. We hadn't eaten for almost a whole month. It was the month our Father died and our Mother couldn't cope with his death. Katniss couldn't hunt because it was winter and we had no money and if it wasn't for you giving us that bread that gave Katniss some hope… we would of all died."

He looked like he had seen a ghost after I told him. The colour had completely drained from his face from the shock of how good his good deed actually was. "She never even… looked at me twice… surely, she would of looked at me twice or said thanks if it was-"

"No," I interrupted. "That's not how Katniss works… She probably felt bad. Like she owed you. She was in your debt and she didn't know how to repay you because you weren't even friends. Trust me… That's how Katniss works." He nodded silently and his tears began to stream. "Oh, Peeta!" I cried. Tears spilled from my eyes as well. All the talk about Katniss made me so sad. I still could feel Peeta's love for Katniss as if I was him. I could feel his heartbreak. I felt so awful and hallow for this boy that sat next to me. I clambered the sobbing mess of a boy into my arms and he didn't hesitate to hug me back.

We kept on hugging and crying for Katniss until there was a knock on my bedroom door, signalling that we had to go because the private scoring sessions with the Gamemakers.

Maybe, just maybe, after finding out the thing that had been holding me back the past few days, I may just be able to find a way to impress the Gamemakers. Or at least, I would try. I would definitely try. Not for me. Not for Rue, my new ally. Not for Peeta, my new friend. But for Katniss, my lovely sister. I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted to see her again. I needed to.


	10. Chapter 10 The Private Training & Scores

**Hey! Sorry that I've not uploaded as much today, I've been working on this chapter since last night and on and off throughout the day, but I've been quiet busy today making a three course meal for my family haha:-) Anyway, thanks for your reviews, and I hope you like this chapter! It's a little bit more exciting, I think! It's much longer than the other chapters as well, the longest I've wrote so far. Hope you enjoy anyway and don't forget to REVIEW! I LOVE READING YOUR REVIEWS! Thank you so much 3 :-) **

After cleaning ourselves up a little bit from our ordeal, Peeta and I were taken to the car that would take us back to the training centre where the private scoring sessions would be held. Haymich wasn't allowed to go with us at this point, because that's how private the Gamemakers were attempting to make the sessions. We were led to wait outside the private session room until our name was called on a tanoy. It was awful just waiting and waiting. The minutes ticked by like hours. Each tribute was allowed ten minutes with the Gamemakers to impress them. Peeta and I were waiting for such a long time, as it went in order of districts starting from one. In my opinion, it really sucked for the last couple of Districts. By the time it was our turn to impress them, they were bored and it would be ten times harder to impress them, meaning harder to get higher scores. After what felt like a year, my name was called from the tanoy. My legs began shaking as I walked. "Hey Primrose," Peeta called out just before I was about to enter the private session room. "Do it for Katniss."

It was like Peeta had injected a surge of confidence in me with those four simple words. I nodded back at him, showing that he had helped push off a few of the nerves as I pushed open the door. The private session room didn't look like it had even been rearranged much since the training sessions. In fact, I don't think they've moved anything. I looked around to where the bunch of Gamemakers were sitting. Well, barely any of them were actually sitting. They were all parading around the little room that they would watch us in. They were drinking and probably had been since the first lot of tributes entered. By now, they'd all be as drunk as Haymich would like to be. They were all eating as well, getting excited over some roasted pig that had just been ordered. I cleared my throat and loudly spoke towards them. "Primrose Everdeen. District 12."

They all turned around at this point, some taking a seat, some just stopping where they were to watch me. I began by taking the plants test. I aced it with no mistakes at all. They seemed lightly impressed, but nothing they'd probably not seen before. I then decided I ought to do some weapon work. I headed over to the knifes, which was the weapon I'd been practising the most in training because it's normally the most commonly found in the arena. The first two didn't hit the dummy but the third hit the outskirts of one of its target. We all knew that was just luck. The Gamemakers began to lose the little interest they'd had in me from the start now so I moved on to the swords. I hit the dummy well a couple of times, but the Gamemakers weren't even watching. This was the best I'd done – better than I'd done in training but they didn't even care. The blood in my veins began to boil. They were going to give me such a low score, but they had barely even given me a chance. _Think. _I told myself. _Think, Prim. What would Katniss do? _

Without even thinking, I grabbed the bow and arrow from the bow and arrow stand. The metal felt cool in my hands. I slot the arrow in place. I knew what to do because I had watched Katniss many a time when I had braved it out into the forest with her. I began looking at the Gamemakers with the bow and arrow in my hand, wandering what I could do that could grab their attention. I looked at the apple in the pigs mouth. If I shot that, that would really get their attention. But the risk of that would be high. I'd never shot an arrow in my entire life. I'd never even touched a bow before this moment. Katniss had always wanted me to, but I hated anything that could take away a living things life. That all had to change now. I began scanning for other things I could hit that would get the Gamemakers attention. The targets weren't going to grab their attention and they were totally out of the question.

I looked at the timer that showed me how much time I had left to impress the Gamemakers. **2 minutes 32 seconds.** _Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. _I reassured myself with calm breathing. _What would Katniss do?_ I asked myself again. My attention then drew to the light bulb that was lighting the Gamemakers section. It was far above their heads, and wouldn't hurt anybody. It was a small target, but if I could hit it, it would grab their attention. I just needed to do something. And quick. **1 minute 39 seconds. **

I thought back to all the times that I'd seen Katniss use her bow. I tried to remember all the times she told me about hunting with her bow as I drew the arrow back against the bow string and made my eyes focus in on the bulb. Before I knew it, I had released the arrow. It didn't hit the bulb. It was better than that. It hit the electrical cord that the bulb was hanging from, causing the bulbs light to make the Gamemakers part of the room to go dark and the bulb smash to the floor. I looked at the timer that was their only source of light apart from the few lights that lit my part of the private session room. **1 minute 1 second.**

I drew the arrow back again and began to aim for the lights above me in my side of the private session room. It was a perfect hit each time. I liked this bow. I felt powerful in it which was such an unnatural feeling to me, but I felt like Katniss. If she could see me now, she would be so proud, which masked over every other feeling. If Katniss would be proud of me that's all I cared about – even if the Gamemakers gave me a terribly low score for my boldness, Katniss would have been proud. She'd never know though unless I came back home. I wish I could go back home.

I looked back at the timer again. **5 seconds. **I waited until the 5 seconds were up before the buzzer went off, telling the Gamemakers and me that my time was over. I put my bow and arrow on the floor, as I could no longer see anything in the room after blowing all the electricity. No Gamemakers dismissed me, so I left on my own accord, shutting the form firmly behind me. I put my back to the door and shoved my head in my hands. What had I just done? I stood there with my head in my hands waiting for a group of Peacekeepers to take me away and punish me for my actions, but no Peacekeepers came, just Peeta. He walked up to me and I realised he must be still waiting for the tanoy to call his name.

"Are you okay?" he stammered. I nodded, even though I wasn't. I lifted my head out of my hands to be greeted by a warm smile from him. "I'm sure it'll be fine." He told me.

The tanoy then went off calling his name. He smiled at me again and opened the door. Before the door closed, I looked into the private session room and saw that the broken lights were nowhere to be seen. There was no glass on the floor, and the Gamemakers just looked as drunk as before. That must have been a very quick clean up. It was as if I'd never even been in there. I stood outside the door before realising that you weren't really supposed to be outside the session room once you're session was over. I sighed and walked away, silently wishing Peeta the best of luck.

After around ten minutes of waiting for Peeta, he finally arrived and we got into the car together to go back to the penthouse. I mouthed over to him _"How was it?" _because I didn't want the Capitol driver to hear us speaking about our private sessions. That was another thing you weren't supposed to do after the sessions, talk about them to anybody. Not even your mentor. But everybody did talk about their private sessions of course. It was obvious everybody would.

Peeta mouthed back over, _"Fine. But the Gamemakers didn't seem happy." _

That made my stomach twist. They weren't happy. God knows what they were going to do with me. Not just with my score, but me, once I was in the Games. They'd probably send out a storm to kill just me, making it look like an accident to the audience. I knew what the Gamemakers were planning to do with my score, anyway, so there was no point worrying about what was going to happen with that. Only time would tell what would actually happen. My guess is that the Gamemakers were either going to give me awfully low score, lower than the rest of the tributes, which meant no sponsors and I would look like an easy target or they would give me a very high score, higher than the rest of the tributes, making me the first person that the other high scoring tributes would go after and kill first. Either way, I was screwed.

Back at the penthouse, Haymich, Effie and the team of stylists were waiting for our arrival. They looked at us for some sort of sign about how our sessions went when we entered the room, but neither of us gave a hint. It was a tense few minutes after we sat down because nobody was talking at all. Haymich was the first to speak. "Okay. Cut the crap. Just how bad were you two?"

"I don't know. I think I did okay. I threw a lot of heavy weights about and used the knifes and started a couple of fires, but the Gamemakers didn't seem to really be watching." Peeta told Haymich. _I wonder why they didn't really seem to be watching. _I thought, knowing exactly why they weren't watching. They were too angry with me and my session. Probably couldn't stop thinking about it.

Haymich turned to me and asked me what happened with me, but I couldn't seem to muster up any words. I felt too ashamed. I knew that Katniss would have been proud of me for what I did in my session, but I knew that the people around me right now would not feel the same as Katniss would. "Come on kid. It can't have been that bad. Start slowly. What did you do in your first five minutes?" he persisted.

I took a deep breath. _First five minutes, okay. _I thought. _That's not too bad. Just the first five. _"Well, they were all pretty drunk when I came in. I told them my name and they began to watch to me for a few minutes while I played around with the plants and stuff." I began. "I noticed that they were getting bored so I started throwing some knifes but I didn't even hit the targets. By then, they'd stopped watching so I went to the swords. I was alright with them actually, but they weren't watching at all."

"And then what?" Haymich asked. I suddenly turned mute again. I knew I was going to have to tell them, but I didn't know how they were going to react. I just had to come out with it. I was going to die whatever I had done in that session. I had only another day left until the Games. I should just say it. Katniss would.

"I shot an arrow near the Gamemakers."

The facial expressions on the table turned quickly into ones of curiosity into disbelief. Nobody talked for what felt like a year to me. Peeta was staring at me, his jaw practically falling off the table. Effie's face looked like it was going to explode. I'd never seen Effie angry, and I sure didn't feel like starting now but it was too late for that. Cinna looked shaken, as if he didn't know I had it in me. I didn't know I had it in me, to be fair. The other stylists still looked curious. They'd never understand why I'd do something like that to the Gamemakers. Haymich, on the other hand, had a different face completely to the rest. He looked like he was going to burst into laughter any second.

"Genius!" he said. There was sarcastic in his voice as he had begun laughing, repeating the word genius over and over.

"How odd that you find this funny, Haymich!" Effie snapped. "I don't think you'll find it funny if the Gamemakers decide to take it out-"

"On who? On her? On him? I think they already have. Loosen your corset, have a drink." Haymich interrupted, causing Effie to become more angry. It sounded like Haymich had a little drink today.

"He's right, Effie, I don't think they'll do anything major. It will be okay. It's not too bad." Cinna said, getting involved.

"How about it's just bad manners, Cinna? How about that?" she screeched.

"How about it's bad manners that the Gamemakers were ignoring her in her chance to impress?" Peeta shouted.

Everybody began to erupt in an argument apart from me. Even the other stylists began shouting, even though I'm pretty sure they didn't really know what they were shouting at. "STOP! SHUT UP! IT HAPPENED, END OF! I CAN'T CHANGE IT NOW, REALLY CAN I?" I screamed after having enough. This was my mistake and they were all taking it so seriously. I was the one who was going to suffer from it. Not them.

Quiet spread around the table as soon as I had stopped shouting. Everybody began to calm down, and after a few minutes I spoke out again. "Let's just have dinner and watch the training scores."

"No." Effie said. She looked up at me. Her cheeks were still red from anger and her wig looked slightly at a funny angle on her head. "Let's all go back to our own compartments and eat separately. Give us all a chance to calm down. I'll fetch you and Peeta when the scoring is about to begin." Nobody objected to the idea, and frankly, it was the best idea I've ever heard come out from Effie. Everybody began to leave the table silently and resign to their rooms. I was slightly relieved when Peeta came into my room with me to eat dinner. I didn't feel like being alone after all of the commotion that I had caused.

We looked at the food menu that was placed on a very large panel over the table that sat on the other side of my room. I chose to have something I'd never heard of which was roast leg of lamb in mint gravy with garlic potatoes. Peeta chose pork loin marinated in five spices accompanied with roasted vegetables. It took a literal five seconds for the food to appear as if from nowhere. Was there nothing this place couldn't do? If only food was this easy to get at home.

"So," Peeta said halfway through the meal. "What were their faces like when you shot the arrow?"

"I couldn't see, the lights went out too fast."

This caused him to laugh. I was glad he found my trick on the Gamemakers funny. I began to join in on the laughter, knowing that it would probably be one of the last chances I had to have genuine laughter. It was kind of funny, when you thought about it. Katniss would of laughed at it.

Peeta had seemed to of read my thoughts, as he mentioned Katniss as soon as I mentioned her. "She would have been proud." He said.

I nodded, my smile fading away. "I wish she knew."

"Gale would have been proud too." He said.

"How did you know Gale?" I asked, sort of shocked that he knew Gale's name, let alone that he was a very close friend of our family.

"Well, I am in love with your sister. I have learnt a few things over the years watching her." He told me. It dawned on me how he said he had watched her walk home every day since she was five, meaning that at some point in the many years he'd been watching her, he had seen Gale. He would of heard his name and began to see him more and more with Katniss. They were always together. "Can I ask you something, Prim?"

"Of course."

"Does she love him?"

I stopped eating. I didn't know how to answer, because in all honestly, I didn't know the answer. I looked at him. His big blue eyes were trusting and pleading me for the truth. "I-I don't know, Peeta. I've always thought that she loved him… But she never said she loved him. She never said anything of the like."

He silently looked down back to his food and let a small 'oh'. I wish I could of told him that she didn't love him to try and make him a little bit happier, but I didn't want to give him anything but the truth. He had the right to know what Katniss' feelings were, even if I didn't fully know myself.

"So, do you think they'll end up together?" he asked, still looking down.

"I've never really thought about it before. I just supposed… that they would. They're such close friends and Katniss really trusts him, and she doesn't really trust anybody." I said honestly. "But that doesn't mean she loves him and it doesn't mean they'll end up together. And it definitely doesn't mean that they're meant to be together."

A forced smile came from Peeta's mouth, but before he could reply, there was a sharp knock at the door. It was Effie signalling that the scores were going to be shown soon.

You could tell that Effie's idea had worked well since we left to have dinner in our own rooms as everybody in the living room seemed to be in much better spirits. They weren't in amazing spirits, of course, but they all seemed fairly calm and much happier. I sat on the black sofa in the middle of Peeta and Cinna. I sat closer to Peeta, knowing that he could comfort me if I needed it for my score came on. Nobody talked to me whilst we were waiting for the show to start, but I didn't mind. My brain was racked with too many nervous thoughts and my stomach was turning so much, I thought that if I even opened my mouth to speak, my roast lamb and garlic potatoes would pour out of me in a very Haymich drunk style – which would not please Effie at all, and I needed to stay on the right side of her!

Everybody stopped talking when the capitol seal appeared on the screen and the anthem played. Caesar Flickerman appeared on the screen, welcoming us to the show and telling us what was going to happen. He didn't waste any time getting into the scores. "Now. District 1. Marvel. With a score of…" here comes the dramatic pause. That was going to get on my nerves soon. "10." This was excepted of course. I had seen Marvel in training and he was great at everything he tried. Apart from the plants test. He sucked at that. The other tribute from his district and the pair from District 2 both got 9s and 10s. The tributes from 3, 4 and the boy from 5 all got the 4s and 5s. Not surprising. The girl from 5, whom I'd nicknamed Foxface and had her down as very clever and cunning, got a very respectable 8. I bet 1 and 2 weren't going to be happy with that. I would love an 8. Or a 7. It's a high score, but not 'come get me and kill me as soon as the Games start' sort of score. The next couple of districts were the same. 4s and 5s all round, except one poor girl from District 7, who looked no older than thirteen years old, got a 3. I felt Peeta sigh for her next to me. It was upsetting. We all knew she was the sort of girl who was going to die first. I wonder if that's what all the other tributes thought of me when they saw me. It's still what I think of me now.

Caesar then introduced Tresh from District 11. He got a 9. I smile crept up on my face. _Well done Tresh. _I thought. I didn't know why I was happy for him, because I bet he would kill me in a heartbeat if I gave him the chance in the arena, but I was. I guessed it was because of Rue. As soon as my thoughts turned to Rue, her face appeared on the screen. Wow, the Capitol have made sure made the picture of her on the screen look very small and weak. How horrible. I knew she wasn't as small and weak as the Gamemakers were making her out to be right now, but the audience they didn't. "Rue." Caesar said. "With a score of… 7."

I took a breath in. I wasn't shocked of such, but in a way I was. I knew Rue was good, but a 7 was amazing for someone who was 12. In fact, I'd never even seen that before in the Games. I wondered what she did in there. Before I knew it, Caesar Flickerman was saying our Districts name. "District 12." He boomed. "Peeta Mellark. With a score of… 8."

Cheering went all around the room. Everybody was patting Peeta on the back, and he certainly looked chuffed. A score of 8 was great. "We can work with that!" Effie told him excitedly.

"Well done," I whispered into his ear. He turned to me and smiled a thanks. Everybody shushed when my name was called out from Caesar.

"Primrose Everdeen."

My sister would be watching this right now. I bet she felt just as sick with nerves as I did right now.

"With a score of…"

My mother would be watching this right now as well. I bet she was going to cry too, like I felt like doing.

"11."


	11. Chapter 11 The Interviews

The whole room re-erupted into applause and cheering, even Haymich, who knew just as well as me that this high score of 11 could be dangerous when I'm in the arena. But the 11 meant sponsors, and sponsors meant food or matches or just something. Something good.

I looked at Peeta who looked just as shocked as me. "Well done." He said, his face pouring with pride all of a sudden for me. He pulled me in for a quick hug, and I hugged him back tightly. We'd both done well, even if my score was a way of the Gamemakers getting a slight revenge on me. At least I didn't look weak. At least Katniss might feel a little proud of me. She would definitely be in shock right now.

After the mandatory hugs all round for Peeta and I from our mentors and stylists, we were allowed to go to sleep. I was relieved, I'd only just realised how sleepy I felt. This day hadn't been as busy as the others, but the energy that it took to feel so nervous was getting to me. I walked groggily back to my room, said goodnight to Peeta and another well done and peeled off all my clothes until I was just in my undergarments. I felt so sleepy, I crawled into bed just like that. I hugged the beautifully soft duvet, pretending that I was hugging Buttercup and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke up to the shrill sound of Effie, once again telling me that it was going to be a "Big, big, big day!" She left my room once she was content I was fully awake and told me I had half an hour to get ready for breakfast and we'd talk about today's goings on during breakfast. I rolled over sleepily and looked at the clock. The clock read 7am. I moaned and dug my head into the pillow. I could stay here in this beautiful huge bed all day long if Buttercup, Katniss, Gale, my mother and maybe even Rue and Peeta were here with me. That would be the best day ever. With everybody I love in one room. If only that was possible now.

I dragged myself up with a lot of force and practically crawled over to the shower. I clambered in and lazily pressed a button on the panel. The smell of fresh paint leaked from the showerhead this time and woke me up. _Eurgh, god,_ I thought_ why would anybody want to shower in the smell of paint? _I quickly changed it, pressing the first row and the fourth button along. This time, the smell of strawberries leaked out of the head. It was luxurious. It awoke another memory that was deep inside my brain, a memory of the one summer three years when Katniss, Gale and I went strawberry picking in the summer. It was a stiflingly hot day, and the strawberries were perfectly ripe. We ate a feast of them, and yet there were still bucketful's left of them to sell at the Hob. This was the first day I went into the Hob. I didn't like the Hob, it scared me slightly due to some of the strange people that would be in there sometimes, but that day in the Hob everybody in the hob was in such great moods from the lovely weather outside. We sold all the strawberries that day.

I finished up in the shower quickly remembering that I had only half of an hour to be fully ready for breakfast. I stepped out and let the blow of hot air from the panel beneath me dry my body and my hair. I looked in my wardrobe for today's clothes and I chose a dress that was cream coloured and has tiny roses all over it. I matched it with a black belt and black flat shoes and my token bracelet. I kissed the bracelet before plaiting my hair into another Katniss style braid. I knew what today was and I needed every piece of Katniss I could get. Today was the televised interviews with Caesar Flickerman before we entered the Games.

I sat in the dining room and Effie and all of the stylists were the only ones here. I was greeted by "good morning"s from everybody on the table. It was torture looking at the food in front of me, not being able to eat it until everybody was at the table. Luckily, it was only a few minutes before Peeta and Haymich walked in together.

"Sorry we're late." Peeta said gruffly. Obviously he hadn't got a great night's sleep.

"Oh you're not, it's fine. We've only been here a few minutes." Said the woman who was Peeta's stylist for the Tributes Parade. I still hadn't learnt her name. Everybody began tucking into the food straight away. I took a huge portion once again. It couldn't hurt adding a few pounds before the Games. I'd need all the extra fat on my body for the Games - if I got past the first twelve hours, that was. There was a lot more talk at the table this morning, everybody was still excited over District 12s first high scoring tributes for almost 10 years.

"Right!" Effie said, halfway through the breakfast. "Today is your tribute interviews and you're going to spend a four hours each with Haymich and me today training for them." Oh fabulous. Four hours with Effie. Haymich, not so bad now he was sober. But Effie? Her voice for ten minutes was about as much as I could handle, let alone four hours of her. "Peeta, you spend your first four hours with Haymich talking about what you're going to say. Prim, you spend yours with me working on posture and body language." Oh great. Even better. I'd only been awake about forty-five minutes and I had to spend the next four hours with the woman's who's personality drilled right into me. I'm not normally a person who dislikes people, but something about Effie gave me a bad feeling.

After breakfast, Effie lead me to the sofa. Haymich and Peeta were going to sit on the roof to practise his interview training. I didn't even know this place had a roof, let alone that you could go on it. Surely that wasn't a great idea. What if tributes tried to jump off the roof in an attempt to not go into the Games?

The next four hours went by painfully. My sitting posture was wrong in about one hundred different ways. All I could think throughout the whole interview was: _Why does this matter so much? The Capitol people won't care if I'm sitting the smallest bit off. _But obviously to Effie, it was of the uttermost importance. When she finally told me it was lunchtime, I couldn't help but give a sigh of relief. She didn't notice, thank God, as that would have been against her A* manner rules. Effie and manners. It was like Peeta and bread. Katniss and hunting. Me and… healing.

I shovelled down lunch and Haymich led me to the roof. We sat on the edge. I was a little nervous, but Haymich told me that there was a force field that would stop me from falling. Or jumping. _Ahh. _I thought. _No tribute could jump off and kill themselves with this force field. The Capitol really did think of everything._

This part of the afternoon was easy. After Haymich had established I was neither a funny interviewee, a smart interviewee or a mysterious interviewee we decided to go for the sweet and innocent sort of interviewee, with a hint of sympathy I would use against the audience when I talked about my sister and the reapings. Haymich made me feel rather confident about my interview and this was the least scared I'd been out of all the things I'd had to go through in the week.

We still had an hour or so left, so I decided to tell Haymich about the alliance I had made at training. "So, I think I have an ally."

"Who?" Haymich asked.

"The little girl from 11 called Rue." I said proudly. I was happy to have her as an ally. In a way, if we weren't going into the Games, I'd be excited to have her a friend. She was so lovely. I couldn't wait to see her and talk to her again, even though when I did get to do both those things, we'd be running away from our deaths.

Haymich shrugged. "She seems alright. You'll make a sweet team for the audience."

I didn't know what he meant by this. I supposed he meant because we both are quiet young. Well, she is definitely young. I'm 15, but I still look around 12 years old. We sat in silence for the rest of the hour we had left. It was a comfortable silence as we both lay on the roof, enjoying the rare peace and quiet we got. I wanted to ask Haymich about his time in the Games and how he won, but I couldn't muster up the courage yet. I didn't know anything about Haymich's Games, and for all I knew he could be upset about talking his time in the arena.

After the hour passed, we met Effie and Peeta downstairs. Peeta looked exhausted. It made me smile. Peeta was good at making me smile lately. He reminded me of home so much and he was such a nice guy. We were rushed into another car again and taken to a different place that we had not yet been. "This is where you'll have your interviews tonight. The stylists are already here and they're ready to start work on you again. Haymich and I will be in the audience the whole time throughout your interview. We will meet you afterwards. Good luck!" she tinkled.

Within minutes of Effie and Haymich's departure, Peeta and I's team of stylists picked us up and escorted us to the rooms that we were going to be spending the next few hours of beauty themed torture in. _"Good luck." _Peeta mouthed as his team began talking about what to do with his golden locks of hair. I gave a big grin back in return and my stylists took me away too.

They began by putting me in a thin robe and sitting me on a very comfy leather chair. They cut off a centimetre of my blonde hair and then put a sticky foam all over it. "This is going to change the colour of your hair." Cinna told me calmly. "But don't worry, we're just putting a shade lighter of blonde in it, nothing dramatic. It will make it look shiny and new."

While the foam was sitting in my hair, they shaped my nails. They put a clear liquid over them and then began to draw little pieces of fire on the tips. "Why are you painting fire?" I asked.

"Because of your outfit the other night. Since the Tributes Parade, everybody has been nicknaming you 'The Angel on Fire'." The stylist explained. I suppose that was good. If I had a nickname, it showed I had some sort of popularity out there in the Capitol. Once they were finished with my nails, they washed off the sticky foam on my hair and cut the ends of. They dried my hair afterwards and showed me what it looked like. It was just a shade lighter like Cinna had told me, and it did look shiny and new. These stylists really knew what they were doing. My hair looked really nice.

Cinna then began to make my hair curly. He told me he was using heat to make it stay curly until I next showered. The whole concept of this baffled me, but once he had finished curling my hair, it did look lovely still. I was so impressed with Cinna's work, I couldn't wait to see what he was dressing me in for tonight.

I didn't have to wait long for me to find out what he was going to make me wear. Before he showed me, he put on a very thin layer of make up over my face to bring out my features but so you could still recognise that it was me. After he had done this, he lead me into a room next door. The dress was hanging on a mannequin. It shocked me how plain it looked. It was crystal white and had no straps. It was body tight until it reached a little above the knees in which it flared outwards in different shades of orange, red and yellow. Fire.

"Do you like it?" Cinna asked.

"It's nice." I told him, but it was clear you could see I was slightly disappointed.

"Don't worry. That's not it." Cinna laughed lightly, reading my facial expression. I got changed into the dress and found that it fit perfectly but I was still a little disappointed. It looked good on me, I must admit. The white made my skin look less pale and my blonde curls went past my shoulders. "You look beautiful." Cinna told me. "Just… one more thing. Swirl around."

"What?" I said, confused.

"Just, turn around and keep turning. Twirl."

I began to twirl like Cinna had told me, when I felt a familiar tingling sensation on my legs, the same one that I got with the synthetic fire at the Parade. I looked down at my legs as I twirled still and saw that my lower legs were engulfed in flames. I twirled my way over the mirror and kept on twirling and twirling until I got a good look at the dress. It looked amazing. Cinna grabbed my shoulders to stop me swirling and when I finally stopped, nausea hit. I sat down in a chair on the far corner of the room, looking down at my dress which didn't even look any different even after the fake flames.

After a few minutes of letting the nausea pass, Cinna decided it was time we meet with Peeta and Portia. Portia must be Peeta's stylist of whom I didn't know the name of. We walked out of the room I was getting styled in to see Peeta and Portia waiting for us outside. Peeta was wearing a white suit, as if to match my white dress, trimmed with red at the edges of his outfit. His blonde hair was slicked back and he looked very classy. Cinna and Portia exchanged compliments about each other's tributes outfit before we were led down the interview waiting room. All of the other tributes were already here with their mentors and stylists. In the waiting room was a large screen where the other tributes would get to watch the interviews while they waited and small black chairs where we would all sit and wait for the buzzer that signalled it was our turn. Haymich nodded in approval towards the stylists when he saw us and Effie squealed. "This is going to be fantastic!" Effie squeaked.

I walked over to the seats and took one that was second to the end. Peeta sat on the one next to me at the end while the mentors and stylists talked about tonight. It was exactly fifteen minutes before the interview show was going to start. Other tributes were beginning to sit down too, including Rue, who took the seat next to me. She was wearing a short puffy blue dress and a tiara. Her hair was in her normal frizzy style, but it looked very cute. She looked even younger than 12 in her outfit. Why would the stylists dress her like that? They must be going for the sweet innocent tribute style, for sure.

"Hello." I said, greeting her with a smile.

"Hello, Prim." She said. "Your dress looks nice. So does your hair."

"Thank you. So does yours," I told her, even though I didn't really like her dress because it made her look so innocent and weaker compared to the rest of the tributes right now. "Are you nervous?" I asked.

"No. Well, I am a little, but this is nothing compared to what might happen tomorrow." She said. She was right. This was nothing compared to tomorrow. This was basically heaven compared to tomorrow. "Speaking of tomorrow, Prim, we need a plan."

"A plan?"

"Yeah. Because we are allies. We need a way to stick together and make sure we're together from the very start." She said. "I was thinking that tomorrow at the Cornucopia, I will run towards the nearest item to me while you run towards the trees to try and hide yourself. I'm a fast runner, so I will catch up with you and we'll stick together from there on."

I nodded. I hadn't even thought of this – how could I forget about that? All I'd really thought about was how scary the Games were going to be, while she was coming up with plans on how to get through the Games and meet with me. She was so, so clever. "What if things go wrong and we don't meet up?" I asked.

"If I don't manage to catch up with you, then I'll probably be hiding in a tree somewhere. If you can, try and climb a tree and stay there unless I can't find you soon, but I'm good with trees and I'm pretty quick so I should find you quickly." She said. _Boy,_ I thought, _she has really thought of everything._ "But if something happens at the Cornucopia… then I guess that's what will happen." I knew what she meant. She meant if someone died at the Cornucopia when the Games started. I sighed and nodded to her.

"Yeah, okay. That's good. Thanks for thinking of all the plans. I'm not very good at that." I said.

"It doesn't matter. I like it," she said, with a huge smile on her face. I thought for the thousandth time about how lovely this girl was. She then turned away to talk to her stylist and Tresh, so I looked back at Peeta. He had been listening this whole time, I completely forgot. I still hadn't told him I had made an alliance with Rue, but I hadn't really had a chance to tell him yet. He raised an eyebrow and gave me a cheeky smile, but didn't have a chance to say anything because the Capitol anthem had begun to play. The show was just beginning to start.

Caesar gave his usual welcome speech before inviting District 1's boy tribute, Marvel, onto the stage. They talked about how good he was with knives and how excited he was the for the Games and how great his score was in the sessions. The next three tributes went like this too. It bored me. I began thinking over in my head what I was going to say. I asked myself possible questions that Caesar could ask in my head while other tributes were interviewed.

Rue was on stage by the time I'd woken from my thoughts. Caesar began by complimenting her on her great score for such a young girl and asking her what she was good at. "I'm very fast, and much cleverer than people may think!" she said with a big smile on her face, but a pure innocence in her voice. The audience were eating it up, there were coo's and clapping going all round. She left the stage when the buzzer buzzed again. I stood up, feeling the nerves hit me as Rue greeted me with a big smile as she came off stage.

"Now, you may know her as the Angel on Fire. But we know her as the lovely Primrose Everdeen!" Caesar boomed. The audience began to clap wildly as I walked gingerly on the stage. The claps got louder when I sat down in the seat next to him, and there were even a few woos. "Now. Now." Caesar said in his loud voice to get the audience to calm down. "Primrose. I think we were all very impressed by your entrance in the Parade the other day."

"Well, it's all down to my wonderful stylist," I said to Caesar, putting a huge fake beam on my face. I looked for Cinna in the crowd and saw him smirk.

"I bet it is! But those flames really did suit you! Don't you think?" he asked the audience. They responded in even louder clapping and cheering.

"Well, that's good, because I'm wearing them tonight." I told him. "Shall I show you?" The cheering was crazy loud, louder than with the other tributes. I began to twirl around and the flames at the bottom half me began to engulf my legs once again. I knew how amazing it must of looked, because the cheering got so loud that I thought the roof might fall in.

"Wow! That is amazing. Truly amazing. Thank you for that." Caesar said. His voice was softening. I knew what was coming. He was going to mention what had happened at the reaping with Katniss. _Katniss._ She would be watching this. Seeing me with my flames, talking new words that she could hear for the first time in a week. "So, Prim." _Here it comes. _"I think we were all very moved when you went in even when your sister volunteered for you. Tell us a little bit about her."

I looked straight into the camera. I knew she'd be going crazy at the screen right now. I could feel tears brimming on the edge of my eyes, but I fought them off. "She's the most amazing person I've ever met."

The audience began cooing and awwing for me. "I bet she is." Said Caesar.

All of a sudden, the buzzer went off and it was the end of my interview. "Primrose Everdeen." Caesar boomed in his regular voice. He shook my hand and I walked off stage. My legs were trembling.

Effie and Haymich greeted me when I came off stage. Effie pulled me in for a hug and I reluctantly hugged back. "That was good!"

"Well done, sweetheart." Said Haymich, patting my shoulder. We all stopped talking when Caesar introduced Peeta to the Capitol audience. I moved over to the television screen and watched.

"So, Peeta! How are you finding the Capitol? And don't say with a map." Caesar began laughing and so did the audience.

"Well, it's really nice." He replied. "But there are so many different things."

"Oh, like what?" Caesar questioned.

"Well, for one, the showers here are weird."

"Showers. We have different showers." Caesar said, looking slightly perplexed which caused the audience to begin laughing again.

"Tell me Caesar, do I smell like roses?" Peeta asked. Ah. He was going for the funny boy interviewee. Caesar leaned in, giving that funny face again that made me audience laugh.

"Do I? Do I smell like roses?" Caesar asked.

Peeta leaned in, taking a big whiff and then laughing. "Well, you certainly smell better than I do!"

"Well I've lived here longer!" Caesar chuckled. The audience began to erupt into a lot of laughter, when Caesar quietened his voice as he did when he going to ask sort of personal questions. "So, Peeta. Is there a special girl back home?"

I took a deep breath. _Yes. YES. _I was screaming in my head, knowing that it was Katniss. "No. No there isn't," Peeta replied with a vague smile.

"Oh come on, Peeta." Caesar persisted. "A good-looking guy like you. There has to be a special girl."

"Well, there is one girl, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know my name." Peeta told him. My heart began to drop to the floor knowing that he was talking about my wonderful sister. He was practically declaring his love for her on television, even if she didn't know it was about her.

The audience began their familiar chorus of awwing. "Aw Peeta. Well I'll tell you what. You go out there and you win this thing, and then she'll defiantly know who you are."

"I… I don't know if winning's going to help me." He stammered.

"Why ever not?" Caesar said. He looked genuinely confused and the audience were hanging onto ever single word that was being said now. There was complete silence. My breathing was heavy as my eyes were clasped on the screen.

"Because I'm pretty sure that she'd rather have her sister return home than me."


	12. Chapter 12 The Roof & Explainations

Before Caesar could find any words to really reply, the buzzer sounded, indicated it was the end of his interview. I couldn't believe what Peeta had said in his interview. The words were swirling around my brain hopelessly. I had no idea what he meant by it, if he really meant anything at all. Did he mean he would rather protect me in the Games so I could go home instead of him? Or was he just admitting his love for Katniss, letting her know of it before he died? I looked at Haymich, he didn't looked shocked at all. They must have been planning this in their interview preparation that was earlier this morning. What a way to get sponsors – the boy who could never be with the girl he was madly in love with because his sister was in the way. Aside from all of that, I was shocked he had admitted that when he knew my sister would be watching and listening. I wonder how she reacted at that point. I wonder what Gale thought of the baker's son revealing his love. I wonder what his mother would think of him being in love with a Seam girl.

Peeta walked slowly off the stage and towards Haymich, Effie and I. He was looking down at his shuffling feet and his hands were in his suit pockets. He seemed almost ashamed he had admitted that he was basically in love with my sister but couldn't have her because of me. I looked at the three people who were around me, and wondered if they knew he was going to say that in his interview. Haymich met my desperate gaze. "Save your private talks for later. There are cameras swarming all over the place here." Haymich said.

I hated to admit it because I wanted to talk to Peeta so much to find out what he was thinking saying that sort of thing in the interview. It could be considered as rebellious towards the Capitol in President Snows eyes, showing up their stupid Games by protecting someone else and being willing to die for them. Did he even realise that?

A million questions twisted pointlessly inside my brain trying to make their way out of my mouth as we drove back to the penthouse. When we finally got there after what felt like a million years, I gave Peeta a look which told him to follow me. I made my way to the roof where Haymich and I had practised interview techniques just earlier that day and ignored Effie as she tried to beckon me down telling me that it was time for dinner. I didn't want to eat right now, I just wanted to talk to Peeta.

The cool Capitol air hit me and I began to shiver. I sat on the very edge of the building and saw that there were parties going on in the streets below. People were cheering and chanting. This must be what happens when the Games are coming soon. People in the Capitol get so excited for the Games. It was bewildering how anybody could ever be so excited to see children turn into murderous monsters. Peeta joined me within a few seconds and sat next to me on the edge. He noticed I was shivering and placed his jacket over my shoulders. I slipped into it without hesitation. It only warmed me up slightly, but it was better than nothing. I turned to face him. He was looking at me with his big blue orbs. The moonlight was shining on his face, showing off his cheekbones and jawline thoroughly. I took a deep breath before asking him, "Peeta. What the hell was that?"

He began to laugh slightly. "What do you mean?"

"In the interview, what do you think I mean?" I said feeling exasperated.

He sighed and ran his hair through his fingers. "What do you think I meant? I thought it was pretty straightforward." I shook my head. It wasn't straightforward to me. I was a real full of thoughts and ideas sort of person, so this sort of thing had provoked several explanations any of which could be true. He sighed again before starting to talk. "I meant that I was going to protect you when we were in the Games."

"As in, sacrifice your life for mine?" I said. He nodded. "But why? I know you're in love with Katniss, Peeta, but this is too much. You can't keep me alive just because you want her to think good of you. It's too much."

"I know." He said. "But, it's more than that. Of course I want to keep you alive because I'm in love with her. That would make her happy. Having you return home would make her a million times happier than having me home. But it's not just her who would be happy having you back instead of me. The whole of District 12 would prefer to have you back, Prim."

"Don't be stupid, Peeta. For one, I'm not even special in District 12. I don't contribute anything. Not compared to Katniss. Or you. You bake bread. Everybody needs bread." I said. "And for two, your family would much rather have you back than me."

"Psht!" he snorted. "My mother sees me about as good as dead now. My dad… well, he might miss me a little, but he adores you. He wouldn't mind which of us come home. My brothers wouldn't care either. We've never had much of a connection. And Rory… he definitely wouldn't mind. He's had a crush on you for years. I wouldn't be surprised if he would want you to win over me. And everybody else in District 12 barely knows who I am, but everybody knows the Everdeens. Everybody likes the Everdeens."

I looked down at the streets below, trying to take in all of the new information. I didn't even realise Peeta felt so worthless about his life. It made my heart break just hearing him say that his own family wouldn't care and would rather have me home in a heartbeat. How could anybody's family do that? I could never imagine how that would feel. My family had always given me enough love for two people. I wished Peeta could share some of that love.

"Peeta…" I began, but he cut me off.

"No, Prim. I want to protect you in the Games. You're one of the loveliest people I've ever met. You need to win. You need to go home. There's nothing you can that can change my mind." He said.

"I… I don't know what to say." I said.

"Could say thanks. I'm giving you my life here," he said with a cheeky smile on his face. I laughed lightly. He was such a nice funny guy. Why couldn't his family see that? It angered me how absent minded they were to him and his amazing personality. He was prepared to give up his life for a girl he had only spoken to for three days, really, for another person's happiness. How selfless.

"Thanks," I said smiling back at him.

We sat in silence until the parties began to die down. The stars were twinkling above us and streetlights and houselights were beginning to die out. I watched with Peeta at my side as the city began to fall asleep. I had no idea what time it was when Haymich arrived on the roof. "Effie sent me up. She said you two need to go to sleep." He said, sitting down with us both at the edge. "I'm not one to agree with her, but it's late and you're going to sleep all the sleep you can get now."

I nodded in agreement, but I didn't move. I didn't feel like moving. This city was beautiful to look at. If it wasn't so cold, I would of just slept here. I wish I could freeze this moment and stay in it forever. I felt my eyelids get heavier and my body relaxing. I suddenly realised that I was exhausted.

The next thing I knew, I was lying in the huge comfy bed in my room, being woken up by a sharp knock on the door. I looked over at the clock that was sitting next to my bed and saw that it was 7 in the morning. I lifted myself up into a sitting position. I rubbed my eyes roughly. It took me a minute of just sitting in bed tiredly before realising that today was the first day of The Hunger Games.


	13. Chapter 13 The Bloodbath

"Give me your arm."

A woman in a white peacekeepers uniform pulled my arm towards her and injected a needle in it. "What is that?" I asked.

"Your tracker." She said flatly. The injection stung and burnt my arm and there was a slight red glow underneath my skin. As soon as her needle left my arm, Cinna ushered me away and led me through a bunch of corridors into a plain white room. In the room was a white sofa and white coffee table. On the coffee table was a small amount of food and a jug of water with an empty glass. Across the other side of the room was an outfit on a hanger. The trousers were made of a thin material and so was the shirt. They were both camouflaged colour. There was also a thick, black jacket and thick black boots. Cinna walked over to the outfit and handed it to me. He turned away as I got changed quickly into the outfit. I knew that once I was in the arena, I would be thankful for this thick jacket. The boots were very sturdy, but the trousers were so thin that I knew they'd get ripped easily. I sat on the pearl white sofa with Cinna once I was changed. The nerves were getting worse every second. I felt my body trembling.

"You need to eat." Cinna said. I refused. I knew it was stupid to reject food, considering that I probably wouldn't be eating in the arena much, but I couldn't keep anything down right now. "At least have a drink." He said as he poured a large glass of water. I accepted reluctantly, not believing I'd even be able to keep this down, but knowing that I needed all the water I could get because that was even harder to get in the arena than food. Cinna wouldn't stop watching me until I'd drank the whole glass of water. I didn't really feel thirsty right now but I knew I'd be thanking him for this later. "Here." He said. His hand was closed and in front of me, offering me something. He opened it slowly to reveal the silver bracelet that Hazelle had given me as a token. I'd completely forgot about it after everything that had happened with Peeta.

"Thank you… so much." I said breathily, clasping it tightly onto my wrist. As soon as it was firmly on, the tube that was behind me waiting for me to be taken into the arena opened. A voice from a tanoy in the room called out, saying it was 60 seconds until the Games would start.

I stood up, my knees almost hitting each other from my body shaking so much. I was so sure I was going to throw up all of the water and this morning's breakfast, but I gulped and told myself I was fine. I walked over to the tube that was still open, waiting for my arrival in it. Waiting to send me to my death. Cinna put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face him. "I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, I'd on you." He said softly. My heart warmed. He touched my hair that this morning I had put into a Katniss style braid. He leaned in to my ear and whispered, "Make her proud." I knew who he meant. My sister. Make my sister proud.

I made my way into the tube. I still felt terribly nervous as I stood in the tube waiting it to close shut, but I knew I couldn't be nervous. This was going to happen no matter what. I may as well die making my sister proud. The tanoy went off again telling us that it was 30 seconds until the Games. The tube shut and all other noise cut off. I began to bang onto the class with my fists but Cinna just looked at me. His eyes were firm, but loving, telling me the message I needed to hear again. _Calm down, calm down, calm down. _I thought. The tube began to move slowly upwards. I stood firmly and tried to make my face appear emotionless as the tube made it way up towards the arena.

The tube dropped around me, releasing me into the arena. I was on a pedestal in a circle, surround the Cornucopia. The other twenty three tributes were standing on their pedestals. Some were getting ready to run towards the mouth of the Cornucopia, where all the weapons were. That wasn't my Game. I was getting ready to run towards the forest, to the closet part of safety you could get in these Games. I looked at the forest, seeing that it was quiet dense and thick which would make it harder to run through but easier to hide yourself. The tanoy voice went off again, and this time didn't stop counting the seconds. It seemed to echo around the arena. _20 seconds. _

I looked around at the pedestals with all the tributes on. Peeta was only about five tributes away from me, and he was watching me carefully, ready to run after me. I began to search for Rue. She was over the other side of the circle from me. She seemed so small and so far. I remembered about our plan. She was going to run for one of the backpacks that surrounded the Cornucopia and run towards the forest after me. I looked at the backpacks dotted around. There were only about five of them, and one was very close to the Cornucopia. I looked back at Rue and noticed she was so far away from a backpack. I looked around myself and saw that there was a backpack only fifteen feet away from me. I knew that because it was so close, it would contain less valuable items, but it was so close to me. It would contain something. Something that might help. _10 seconds._

I suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of temptation to run for the backpack. It was so risky. But Rue running for a backpack that was so far away was risky too. She could get slaughtered. She must realise that. I felt myself twitching in anticipation to get the backpack. _5 seconds._

I knew that if the roles were reversed, Rue would go for the backpack. I knew I had to do this. _3 seconds._

This would be the craziest thing I've ever done in my entire life.

_2 seconds. _

This was going to be it.

_1 second._

Everybody was running. It was all so fast. It was all happening so fast. My legs were moving and I didn't even realise. It felt like I wasn't even controlling my own body movements. I was running faster than I had ever run before. I wanted to stop and look for Rue, but I knew I couldn't stop or someone would catch me. Before I knew it, I had grabbed the backpack and was running towards the forest. The forest seemed so far away from me right now and I could barely see because the wind was getting into my eyes. I heard screams behind me as I kept on running. My legs were feeling like jelly and I could barely breath. I had never ran this much before or this fast. I clung to the backpack tightly against my chest and tried not to concentrate on the fact I could heard people pleading for people not to kill them. This part of the Hunger Games was perhaps the worst. The Bloodbath. Almost half the tributes died in the bloodbath.

I was only a hundred and fifty feet or so away from reaching the forest edge when I heard a voice scream my name. "PRIMROSE!" It kept on screaming and screaming. "PRIMROSE!" It was getting closer and I knew I couldn't stop, but the scream was getting closer. "PRIMROSE! PRIMROSE!" I almost at the forest, but the voice was still after me.

"PRIM!" it screamed. _Prim? _Only two tributes called me Prim. None of the rest knew that was a nickname. I twisted my head around swiftly and saw Peeta. He was running at full speed with Rue in his arms. He was getting closer and closer to me and I saw that Rue had her eyes shut. Was she dead? _No. No, she couldn't be. Not Rue. Not now._ "KEEP GOING!" He screamed. It was only then I realised that I wasn't moving at all. My eyes grew wide as I saw one of the District 2 tributes running towards Peeta, Rue and I.

I began to run again, faster than before. Adrenaline was taking over and causing me to get faster and faster. The girl from 2 was following us and I knew I couldn't stop. I saw Peeta was very close to me now and it was obvious that his adrenaline was taking over in him as well. We hit the forest and I kept running. I couldn't stop until I knew it was completely safe.

I kept on running and clutching the backpack until Peeta told me to stop. We were thinner part of the forest which told us that we were now at least two or three miles away from the Cornucopia. I found a thick bus near a tree that we could all sit under and be camouflaged slightly, even though I was sure no other tribute had come this way.

I sat down and Peeta followed my lead and then laid Rue on the forest floor. Her face was still full of colour and I was so relieved when she lifted her eye lids and showed me her blinking brown eyes. "Rue." I said breathily. "What happened with you?"

She tried to sit up, but she winced in pain. I looked at her body and saw there was a cut on her leg. It didn't look deep, but it didn't look small either. It lead from halfway down her calf to her ankle bone. I pushed her down gently so she could lie down and not to strain her cut. "I was running to get the backpack. I was reaching down to pick it up and a girl grabbed my ankle and made me trip… I was quickly getting up from the fall, but she had a knife and cut my leg in my attempt to escape." She said. Her face then erupted into a big smile. "But I got the pack."

I looked up at Peeta who had the pack on the back. He was smiling too. "So how is Peeta involved?" I asked.

"I saw she was struggling to run after she got cut and I wasn't too far, so I ran to get her." Peeta told me. "We are all a team now, you know."

I matched the grinning pair when I remembered about Rue's cut. I grabbed the pack of Peeta's back in hope to find some sort of medicine to clean it up. I guess this is where the inner healer in me would really help. I found a large reel of bandages which in Rue's backpack, which was just as good. I also found a metal water bottle full of water. I trickled a little bit out and placed it into her cut to clean it and then wrapped it up in bandages. "We should stay here for an hour or two. You need to leave your leg and try not to walk on it so it can scab over and the new skin can form quickly." I told Rue as I finished up.

"Okay." She said. "Can we see what else is in my pack now, while we wait before we can move again?"

I nodded and suddenly remembered my backpack which I had placed inside the bush we were in. "I forgot. I got a pack too." I said. Rue and Peeta burst into massive disbelief smiles. "It was the one nearest the Cornucopia, so it probably hasn't got a lot in."

"It doesn't matter. Something is better nothing." Peeta said, still smiling. I passed him my backpack out of the bush. He unzipped it and began to empty its contents. Inside my pack was a water bottle the same as Rues, but it had no water in. There were 5 packs of dried fruit and one pack of dried beef. There were bandages also and painkiller pills. I was smiling. This bag really did contain great stuff. Peeta and Rue congratulated me on being brave and getting the pack.

"We're going to have to make sure we camouflage that with mud or something." Rue said. "That orange on the front will get you seen easily."

I looked at the pack and saw the bright orange. I hadn't seen it before. Rue was so clever like that. I was so happy to have her as an ally. I dug my hands into the dry mud that was around us and tried to rub it into the orange, but it didn't work. "It's okay, we'll do it a little later when we find some damper mud." Peeta said.

We then opened Rue's backpack, which was coloured brown and had no need for camouflage. Inside we found a small insulated sleeping bag, the water bottle we had used before, the bandages, pain killers, fever tablets, three packets of dried beef and a bread roll in an airtight packet. This was certainly generous, but this pack had been near the Cornucopia. "Well done, Rue. This is fantastic." I told her.

"It really is." Peeta said placing his hand on her shoulder and giving her a firm squeeze. She smiled and sat herself up being careful not to move her legs.

We were quiet sitting under the bush trying to wander out what our next move should be. None of us were monsters, we didn't want to kill anybody in these Games, so going tribute hunting wasn't really an option. My thoughts quickly turned to Katniss who was probably watching this intently right now waiting for my face to flicker on the screen. She must know I wasn't dead by now. She would have been watching me at the bloodbath and she would have been cursing at the screen when she saw me running for a backpack – but it had all paid off now.

My thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sound of the canon going off. I counted each boom.

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. _

Twelve. That was twelve lives that were no longer living. Twelve heartbeats that stopped pumping. Twelve lungs that has stopped breathing. Twelve families that life has just crumbled and ended.

Twelve people.

Twelve lives.

Gone.


	14. Chapter 14 The First Night

I hadn't known these twelve people. I hadn't even spoken to them or smiled at them but their deaths hit me hard. I wouldn't even know which twelve had died until later tonight when it was dark enough for the Capitol to display the projections of today's death. I wanted to mourn for these people, cry for their tragic deaths, but I knew I couldn't. This wasn't the place or the time, but that didn't stop the emotions pouring out to be displayed on my face to my allies. Peeta gave me a sympathetic pat on the back, smacking me back into reality. If the camera's caught me with this amount of vulnerability on me, it wouldn't look good to the audience. It wouldn't make Katniss any less worried either.

"We need to keep moving and get rid of our tracks here." Rue told us both, slowly getting up and pulling her trousers over her bandaged cut.

"You're right." Peeta agreed, helping pull her up and then pulling me up.

We began to walk after trying to conceal our stoppings at the bush and our tracks as we walked. None of us really had a clue where we should go or what to do. We just kept walking upwards and further away from the Cornucopia where I was pretty sure those crazy strong District 1 and 2 tributes would be camping out. We kept on walking until it was dark and we were all very warm, we had all taken off our jackets. I occasionally stopped to pick up the edible berries where I found them and picking plants that I knew may help with medicines if we got hurt slightly. It wasn't until the light got very dim until Rue spoke up. "It's probably best if we got some rest now. We will all take shifts in the night." She said.

"Yeah. It's best if we're really rested up – there's no doubt the Careers will be out hunting tomorrow." Peeta chipped in. It bugged me the he said hunting. It reminded me of how Katniss would hunt. But that was different. This was humans killed for no reason, not animals that we needed to kill to survive.

"Who are the Careers?" I asked, puzzled.

"They're the Districts from 1 and 2." Peeta told me. "They're called Careers because they're trained for these Games since twelve years old. By the time they're eighteen, they volunteer. That's why they seem so lethal."

"But isn't training before the Games against the rules?" I asked.

"Yeah." Rue chipped in. "But the Capitol overlook it. District 1 and 2 are like the Capitol's babies."

It all made a little bit more sense now on why they were so much more prepared to kill and so much stronger than literally every other tribute in the Games. I nodded towards the two of them to show I understood about the Careers. What a name to call themselves. The Careers. It made it sound like The Hunger Games was their workplace and killing was their main job entitlement. How sick and twisted. "So, where are we going to rest up tonight?" I asked.

"Up a tree. It's the safest place." Rue said. She smiled. She was good at climbing trees. We began to follow her as she walked, checking out the size of trees and how flexible their branches were and other tree stuff. After a couple of minutes, she found what she considered a good sturdy tree. She began to climb it slowly. "Follow my moves you too. Don't put a foot out of place, or you'll fall." She called down. I began to follow her lead, Peeta closely behind. His feet slipped off a few times, but he managed to get up after a few trips. I found it easier than I expected to climb the tree. I settled on a branch across the trees trunk from Rue, while Peeta settled on the one underneath me. By the time we were all in the tree and comfortable that we weren't going to fall from the sky was a deep blue. The temperature was getting quiet cold and I had to put my jacket on. I looked over and I saw Rue had too.

"Go to sleep, Prim." Peeta said. "You too, Rue. You're both getting cold – sleep will take off the egg of being cold."

I mumbled a thanks and tried to close my eyes. It took a long while to get to sleep, but from all the adrenaline and walking today had made me exhausted and I did eventually sleep. I was quickly awoken from uncomfortable slumber in the tree by a scream. A high pitch scream nearby. I looked over and saw that Rue had awoken from the screen also and Peeta was looking over in the general direction of where the scream was coming from. I saw a trail of smoke rising in the air around forty yards away. I knew what happened immediately. Someone had lit a fire and they'd been found and killed. I didn't have to wonder who would of done that. The Careers.

A canon boomed and the forest silenced. The Careers must of gone in another direction away from us because I would of heard them by now walking past us. I was suddenly glad that Rue had made us conceal our tracks constantly on the way here.

After a few minutes of dreadful silence between us as we took in the death that just happened so near us, the Capitol seal appeared in the sky. The anthem played out and began to show us the faces of the tributes who had died today.

_The girl from three. _She was young looking. Only 13, maybe 14. Too young.

_The boy from four. _His hair was very curly. He looked around 15.

_The boy from five. _He looked around 16 or 17. He had dark brown hair.

_Both from six. _They looked 16/17ish. Both good looking. I wonder if they had loved ones back home like Katniss had Gale.

_Both from seven_. They both looked clever. 16 or 17, maybe.

_Both from eight. _He was Chinese. Looked only about 15. Was cute. Girl only looked 12.

_Both from nine._ Girl looked around 18 and had curly hair. The boy only 16 and was also Chinese.

_Both from ten. _Girl looked 14. Boy looked older, didn't know how old. Both looked so weak.

The Capitol then showed its seal and the projection cut to a halt. That was thirteen children dead in one day. I dread to think what tomorrow might be.

**Hey guys! Sorry that this chapter was a bit boring. Although, the Games have finally started and I would love to hear what ****YOU**** would like to see happen, so please read and review or personal message me with your ideas! Thank you so much if you're still reading. I hope you enjoy. **_**Review review review **_


	15. Chapter 15 The Careers

I woke up early in the morning to Peeta shaking me lightly. I don't know how I had even fallen asleep that night, but I dreamt of the faces of the tributes that had died that day before. Rue was already awake and was rationing out some dried fruit and berries that I had picked yesterday for breakfast. She handed me and Peeta them and we tucked into them slowly, savouring each bite. It felt so strange being with the two as a team. Not that we were a strong team. We were a team with no moves. No plan. What plans could we even make? I had no intention of killing anyone. I could see in Rue's innocent eyes that she had the same intentions of me.

We all clambered down the tree and began the same thing as we did yesterday. Walking and walking further away from the Cornucopia, masking our paths as we went. As we were walking, it hit me how little I knew both my team mates, especially Rue. All I ever did was make assumptions about them. I considered them both as friends, but I didn't even know what Peeta's brothers names were, or even if Prim had any brothers or sisters. I looked at her small face. She was so young. Surely, if she had a sister, she would of volunteered for her?

It was around midday as the sun was very high in the sky. It was blistering heat and we hadn't stopped all day. I was sweating so much that I felt like ripping off my shirt in an attempt to cool down. My mouth was terribly dry and I was parched for water. I hadn't drank since the very start of the Games with Cinna. "We need to find water." I said, my voice cracking a little from the dryness. Rue handed me her water bottle from the backpack she had retrieved in the bloodbath yesterday. I took a big gulp, barely even thinking about rationing it until we found a water source. "We're going to need some more and soon." I said after Peeta took the water bottle to have a drink himself, following Rue to have some too. We stopped in our tracks.

"Well, which way shall we go?" Peeta asked. Like I had a clue.

Rue crouched down to the ground and pushed her hand through the forest bed. "The muds a little damp. I say we go East for a little bit, checking the ground constantly. The wetter the mud gets, the closer we are to the water." She said changing the direction she was headed to East instead of North. Rue was quickly becoming the leader of this little alliance. It was nice. I bet the Capitol would like it. I bet Katniss would like it. Like that I found someone nice in the Games. Like that I was finding a friend before my death. A friend that I barely knew.

With that thought, I decided now would be the best time to ask questions, while we had some time to spare and we weren't about to die in the next two minutes. "Rue, do you have family back in District 11?" I asked.

She looked slightly startled at the randomness of this question but the smile that was sneaking on her face made it seem like she was happy I was taking an interest. "Yeah." She said, the smile growing. "I have a sister, and a brother. My brothers fifteen, his name is Freshen. My sister's nineteen in a few days… her names Gabriele."

"They're such pretty names, Rue." I said. "What are they like?"

"Freshen is just the boy who everybody loves in our District. Tresh and him we're such good friends. They played sport together over at our house in their spare time. That's how I know him so well." She said softly. "Gabriele loves to sing. Just like me. Whenever we're not working, we're singing. We sing to the mockingjays. They sing back at us too." Her smile formed into one of many feelings. One part of her smile was happy because of the memories I'd caused to erupt in her mind, another part of her smile was sadness knowing she may never get to have those memories again.

"I have a sister too. Her names Katniss." I said. She already knew I had a sister, I was sure. "She used to sing with the mockingjays with my Father too." I gulped hard, trying to swallow any tears that were surfacing, but a few had escaped and were rolling down my cheeks. A firm hand squeezed my shoulder and I turned to see that it was Peeta's. His face was firm, possibly emotionless to the people watching, but I knew that face. I may not of known him very long, but his face was screaming emotions to me. Emotions of sadness. Emotions of his heartbreak. I placed my hand on top of his, giving it a tight squeeze back before I wiped my eyes roughly. "Have you ever heard them sing, Peeta? Have you ever heard them with Katniss?" I asked.

He nodded softly, the memory playing through his mind as he spoke. "Once. I was putting rubbish in the bakery bins, near the fence, when I saw her sneak out a few yards away. I knew she was going to the forest. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I followed her." he said. "She would probably hate me if she had caught me following her, but it might have been worth it, to hear her sing to those mockingjays. It was beautiful. She sung light tunes, and they sung it back so delicately." He exhaled deeply as he finished his last sentence. I knew how he meant about it being so delicate. It was so beautiful when she sung to them. She rarely did sing to them because it reminded her of Father so much, but when did sing to them it was fantastic. Rue was quiet too. She was obviously thinking about how her sister would sing to the birds. It was a memory we all shared, even if the memory was slightly different for us all.

I knew the camera's would be focusing on us right now. Listening to our personal conversations. Hooking the audience on our joined sadness. I wonder what Katniss would be feeling with Peeta and I talking about her in a way neither of us have ever talked about her before to anybody.

We were walking in silence, engulfed by memories, until Rue came to a halt. She crouched down again at the ground and stuck her fingers into the mushy mud. I quickly remembered about how she had told us that the mushier the mud, the nearer we were to water. I smiled slightly. Water. Water. Water. Water is my new best friend. I was still so thirsty. "I think we're near." Rue said, matching my little smile. She picked up a handful of the mushy mud and then went to my back and placed it on my pack. I had completely forgot about camouflaging it. She rubbed it in until the orange wouldn't show anymore at all. It would do for a few hours until the mud dried, then we'd need some more, but right now I was just focused on the nearby water.

I let Peeta cover up our tracks as our pace quicker in a hurry to find the water. Within minutes, we'd found it. I let out a small 'eek' as I rushed into my backpack to find my water bottle. Rue copied me and we both hurried to the cleanest part of the water to fill our empty bottles. It wasn't until I heard distant wooing that I realised where we actually were. We were at the lake, the open public lake that was only a mile or two from the Cornucopia. The excitement from actually finding the water made me forget to check where I was, and now I was at the lake, faced with a pack of Careers, walking confidently towards us. They were taking their time, as if they were trying to tease us with our own deaths.

I looked at Rue. I was in a state of shock and so was she. I looked at Peeta. He was still covering our tracks one or two yards away. He hadn't noticed. I knew I had to shake myself out the shock coma I was paralysed with. With all my might, and the clutch on my bottle tighter than ever, I told myself _Legs. Move. MOVE. MOVE. MOVE. _

They finally responded and Rue's did simultaneously. My legs were moving just as fast as they did at the Cornucopia, and that was pretty fast. I ran past Peeta within seconds, who looked dumbfounded as I sprinted. He quickly joined, sensing danger that was reassured with the Careers still wooing behind us. I looked behind me and saw that Rue had just overtook me but Peeta was still behind. The Careers had speeded up to a steady jog now. They were so confident, even though we were so much faster than them. I looked ahead of me and saw that Rue was now climbing up a tree. I followed her lead instantly. "Peeta, come on!" I beckoned at him, seeing he was not following so well. I waited at the tree trunk, putting my legs into position to climb until he had caught up with me.

"Move, Prim! Move!" he said desperately, matching my position after I had climbed a three feet. Rue was safely up high in the tree and I was scrambling, faster and faster until I was up there. I stood gingerly on a branch that was thick, with Rue on one just above me. Peeta quickly went to a branch near us both. We were all desperately gasping for air when the Careers joined us at the bottom of the tree. I saw that there were five of them. The two from District 1 and 2, and the girl from 4. Why was she with them? She wasn't one of their special trained people, was she? She must have some sort of skill, else they would probably never allow her to be with them.

"Got you now, angel on fire." The one I remembered to be Cato said. His allies began to woo some more. Cato looked at the girl with blonde hair from District 1, Glimmer, and pointed towards the tree. She walked to the trunk and sprawled her legs across the trunk and tried to push herself up the tree using her arms to pull herself higher. Rue gave a light laugh at her pathetic attempt to climb up, and her laugh got harder when Glimmer collapsed off the tree and fell, _thump, _on her back.

"For Gods' sake, Glimmer." The short brown haired one said. She looked up at us in the tree. Her face was very distinguished, but she looked young. Only around fifteen. That couldn't be right. Why would a fifteen year old volunteer for the Games? Especially when the District1 and 2 kids are trained for this? Surely an eighteen year old should of volunteered.

The girl then began looking around in her backpack she had slung on one side of her shoulders. She picked out a very sharp shiny knife and threw it in our direction – but we were so high up, it didn't even get within six feet of us. Cato then began to get angry at his allies. "Get out the way." He pushed the two girls so hard that Glimmer almost fell over, the younger girl kept her feet and gave Cato a dark scowl. If looks could kill, she would have everybody in the Games dead in a minute. Cato began to haul himself up the tree. He was physically stronger than Glimmer, but he fell to the ground quickly after only getting about five feet up the tree.

"That's it." Glimmer said. She pulled out a bow and arrow that was sitting on her back. I hadn't even seen it. It was very sleek and was made from a light silver metal. She pulled the arrow on the string, but it didn't get anywhere near us. She was a terrible aim. Nothing compared to Katniss. Glimmer tried to shoot her arrows three more times, but the aim got worse and worse.

"For God sake." Said the District 1 boy. "This is ridiculous. You guys all suck."

"You try better then, jackass." Glimmer retorted. Wow, for allies they didn't really get on well.

"I will." Said the boy. He snatched the bow and arrow off Glimmer and tried to aim. When he failed twice, he threw it back at her. "This shit thing is broken. Why is it even in the arena? It's crap."

I gave a tiny smile to myself. I knew why it was in the arena. The Gamemakers thought I would of gone for it at the bloodbath, but I wasn't that stupid. They thought it was my weapon of choice – but I just got lucky. I still wanted it though. Badly.

The District 4 girl, who had seemed to tag along with them all even though she wasn't one of their Career trained tributes, spoke. "Why don't we just wait them out?" she said. "They have to come down at some point. They can't stay in that tree forever. That or they starve to death up there." Ah. That's why they had pulled her on the team. She was clever. That was indeed a clever idea. It terrified me. She was right, though. We would. And they would wait until we would to kill us. Kill me. The girl who scored 11 freaking points. _Thanks, Gamemakers._

The Careers seemed to take to the District 4 tributes idea. It was the only idea they had that would have any chance of working. "Somebody make a fire." Ordered Cato as he sat down, pulling out some food from the District 2 girl's backpack.

I pulled my gaze away from them all as they settled down with their fire and feast of food that were obviously from devoted sponsors. I looked at Rue and Peeta. Rue was looking around the forest, deep in thought. I knew she had some sort of plan ticking away in her mind. I was so lucky to have her on my team. She was so young – but so, so clever. She would get us out of this. Peeta was looking back at me, matching my stare. I gave him a light smile, and he met back with a similar one. _"Are you okay?" _I mouthed to him.

"_Better than ever." _He replied, his smile increasing.

"_Get some sleep."_ I mouthed, seeing the bags under his eyes get darker as the night sky did. He didn't object and closed his eyes, wrapping his jacket around him. He fell asleep within seconds, his chest rising and falling slowly. His face looked so pale and young when sleeping.

Rue tapped my shoulder lightly after a few minutes of me watching Peeta sleep. She beckoned me up towards her branch. It was a thick, sturdy branch which would easily hold our tiny bodies. Between us, we couldn't of weighed more than 120 pounds. She pulled out the thermal sleeping bag from her pack and wrapped it around us both. It kept us beautifully warm as we watched out the Careers in the night. Rue was still deep in thought as we slightly cuddled to keep even warmer with our body heat. I so wanted to know her plan. I knew it would be brilliant, just like her.

My body relaxed throughout the hours and my eyes were feeling heavy. I felt myself slipping away into sleep, thinking of Katniss as I did so. I wonder how she was feeling. I wonder. I could only wonder. I'd never know. Her face appeared in my dreams that night. It was wonderful to see her.


	16. Chapter 16 The Sponsors Lifesaving Gift

_**Chapter 16**_

I woke up every hour that night. I was constantly afraid I was going to fall out of the tree and into my sure death with the Careers. After waking up from an unrested sleep three times, I decided to just stay awake. I watched as the fire from the Careers mini-camp dimmed out slowly and their light sleeping sounds echoed around us. It was so strange how they felt so safe here, in the middle of the arena in the Games, where right now as they were so vulnerable, anybody could ponce on them and kill them. But nobody was stupid enough to do that. They were Careers, and one of them were possibly more lethal than Rue, Peeta and I put together.

It was just beginning to get light when Rue stirred from her sleep. She woke up pretty quickly as soon as she was aware of her surroundings. She looked at me with her massive round brown eyes. They were full of determination. Determination to get out this. She broke away from my stare and began to quietly unzip our sleeping bag and climbed out carefully, trying to make sure I wasn't wobbling off the branch we were both perched on. I tightened my grip around the wood as she was moving. Peeta began to wake too while Rue was packing away the sleeping bag in the backpack she'd fetched from the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. How long had I been in here? It felt like a year ago I was running away from the Cornucopia now, even though I knew subconsciously that it was only a matter of two or three days ago. It felt even longer ago that I had last been in District 12 with my mother and my sister – happy, and so much safer than I was here.

I looked back at Rue, who was now sitting beside me, gripping tightly to the branch like I was. She was staring at the Careers who were still fast asleep. I could almost hear her mind ticking away, trying to think of a plan, how to get out this. I knew that if we didn't get a plan to get out of this, the Careers would not wait for us like they had said they were going to. They would get bored and impenitent and find a whole new way to kill us with help from sponsors giving them gifts of weapons to kill us with.

"Have you got a plan?" I whispered. I heard the hope drip from my voice.

"No." she said. My heart dropped at her words. All my faith had been put into her having a plan. She was so clever, I just presumed she was have a plan. The fact that she didn't just began to sink into me, and that death sentence seemed to be getting closer and closer to me.

We sat for another few dragging minutes, until a parachute came floating down and landed into my lap. I looked in shock at my legs where the cool metal parachute lay, wondering what could be in there. I didn't need water right now – well I could do with some, but it wasn't desperate – and I didn't need food either, or a medicine. Haymitch must has thought of something to get us out of this and this was going to be it. I didn't know what was inside yet, but I looked up towards the sky and mouthed a small _'thank you'_, hoping he would see and realise it was for him and the sponsors who had bothered to waste their money on me. I guess getting a 11 in training had its perks. This was certainly one of them – but the group of people below me was certainly not.

I unleashed the latch on the parachute and opened it slowly to see a small knife. Confusion spread across my face. What would Haymitch want me to do with a knife? Jump down and kill them all? There was no possible way of that ever happening. I looked over to Peeta, but his face just met with the same confusion. I looked to Rue, expecting to be met with the same, but her face had crept into a smile. She met my stare and her smile. "Get ready to run." She said quietly, snatching the knife out of my hands. Did she have a plan?

I frowned, unsure of what she was talking about. She stood up carefully on the branch and began to edge her way towards the end of the branch. I thought she was going to fall when within a matter of milliseconds she had jumped to the neighbour tree next to us that was right over the Careers heads. It was shocked me how light and delicate it was she jumped. I knew if I did that, I would be very loud and probably fall on my back, wheezing and coughing. I wondered where Rue had learnt her talent of climbing trees and jumping from tree to tree. I watched her as she climbed down two branches until she was close a bee's hive. She began to cut through the branch, a few meters away from the hive that was almost exactly on top of the Careers mini-camp. It dawned on me as soon as the branch had been cut and the hive had exploded onto the forest floor onto the Careers camp, that it wasn't just a bee's hive. It was a tracker jacker hive.

Tracker jackers were genetically made winged insects that's sting could give you serious hallucinations – or if stung a lot, could result in death.

What Rue was doing to save our little team, could kill her. But it could also kill the Careers. It was the only chance we had. She was so brave.

My legs began to work their way down the tree, and quickly ran as soon as I hit the ground. I heard two cannons boom as I ran. I wonder who was dead. I hope it was the Careers, and not Rue. Please not Rue. Peeta was not long behind me, running after me and away from the tracker jackers. I stopped after about 200 metres, knowing that the tracker jackers would probably be after the Careers right now and not us. And they would probably be after Rue too.

"Rue." I said breathily. "Rue. Where's Rue?" I said to Peeta, my voice getting louder, more panicked. I began to run in the same direction. I heard a buzz of tracker jackers nearby, and slowed down to a jog. I couldn't see the Careers camp as the trees and bushes were concealing it, but I spotted Rue. She was unconscious in a tree above us. She must've jumped from tree to tree, realising it was her best chance of quick escape, until the hallucinations got her from any stings she must have got. I began to pray in my head that she wasn't dead.

Without a second thought, I climbed up the tree. I was rushing so much that my feet were slipping off its rubbery bark, almost causing me to fall several times, but I soon made it to the branch she had so carefully left herself lying on. Even when she was being painfully stung my insects and going through strong hallucinations, she was still clever enough to make sure she would fall. I grabbed her wrist and felt for a heartbeat. Sure enough, it was there. It was slower than it should be, but it was there. I took a huge breath of relief. I began to look on her where she had been stung and took out the stingers from her skin. The sooner they were out, the better. They couldn't put any more poison into her body that way. I gave myself a quick smile as I was plucking the three stingers out from her body. I knew my mother would be proud right now – seeing the healer come out of me and being useful. It felt good.

"Is she okay?" Peeta asked, startling me. I forgot about him. But he was there, perched on a branch underneath us, watching.

"She's okay. She's unconscious, though. Her bodies trying to fight off the poison. She might be out for a while until she's okay." I replied, looking down at him and giving him a reassuring smile.

"Have you seen what's in her hand?" he asked.

I looked at Rue's left hand that was dangling slightly off the branch. I picked up her arm, feeling a heaviness in her hands. I saw that in her tight grip was the bow and arrow that Glimmer had. How must of Rue got that? Did Rue know about my bow and arrow minor skill? Also in her hand was the knife she had used to cut the branch. I took the two weapons from her clutch and rest her hand her stomach. I turned to Peeta. He knew about my bow and arrow minor skill as I had told him about it in the penthouse when I was upset over my private training session. His eyes light up as I held the bow and set of arrows in my hand. It was so light, and was made of a cool silver metal. The string was tied tightly on the bow and the arrows were sharp. I knew Katniss would deeply love this set of bow and arrows. As much as my father would of. _Father._ I thought. My heart panged for him. I missed him so much, even though I rarely spoke of him.

I carefully slid my way off the branch, making sure Rue was still stable, and sat on Peeta's branch. I gave him the knife. "Keep it safe. You may have to use it." I told him.

"Same for you." He said, nodding towards the bow and arrows.

"I don't even know if I can use them, Peeta." I admitted.

"Of course you can. Believe in yourself." He told me. "If you won't believe in yourself for you – believe in yourself for Katniss."

I took a deep breath inwards at his words. "Okay." I said in barely a whisper.

That day, Peeta carried Rue almost a mile away from where we had been before. We stopped in a very concealed part of the woods. Peeta put Rue in a bush and covered her with leaves. We both agreed that we should change her leaves twice a day until she regained consciousness. I hoped she would wake soon. It was dangerous to stay in one place for too long, but we didn't have a choice. We couldn't lug Rue's limp body around with us all day, and there was no way we could just leave her either.

When we finished covering Rue with different leaves, I dripped some water into her mouth. Peeta and I then drank some too and then ate some dried beef and fruit between us, but we rationed it. We had to be sensible now.

It was getting darker in the arena when we had finished eating, so we climbed a nearby tree that was in direct view of Rue. I took a first shift of watching out while Peeta had a little sleep. We agreed that I would wake him when the anthem showed us the deaths of the tributes today. After that, I would sleep for a few hours then Peeta would wake me again and I would try to hunt a little while he switched Rue's leaves around and kept watch again.

I let Peeta sleep and the hours passed quickly as I thought of old memories. The anthem began to play and it caught me off guard, as I had been so engrossed in my thoughts. I shook Peeta gently as the Capitol seal appeared in the sky. The face of Glimmer from District 1 shinned in the sky. Her facial features on the seal looked so beautiful. Her hair was in two plaits and her eyes were sparkling with confidence. Now she was dead. It was strange, the feeling that overwhelmed me about her death. I didn't like Glimmer, as she had tried to kill me, but I knew somebody like her would have a real amazing life back home. A boyfriend, a big group of friends, a loving family. And now they would all have to grieve for her. I tried to shake these thoughts off me, as I knew it could have been me in the sky with my family grieving. I was too soft.

Next, shone the face of the District 4 tribute. I began to think of her family too, before even realising I didn't even know her name. I didn't even know her name. How awful of me…

I closed my eyes tightly and wrapped my jacket around me fiercely, trying to wash away all thoughts of the deaths that I had been a part of. I knew that tonight was going to be a cold night, as the wind was turning already. I so wished I could be in the sleeping bag with Peeta right now, sharing body heats, but I knew that our weight on one branch of this quiet thin tree would not hold. Peeta was a muscly boy, so he weighed a lot more than it may seem.

I fell asleep slowly, knowing that tomorrow everything may change. Now I had this bow and arrow, anything could happen. If I get used to this weapon, I may have a chance. I was going hunting tomorrow morning. This would determine everything for me. If it turned out that my luck from the training sessions had come with me into the arena with the bow and arrow, maybe I could just try to go home. This bow and arrow was my only hope.


	17. Chapter 17 Rue Awakens

_**Chapter 17**_

It was a day and a half until Rue awoke from her miniature coma from the tracker jacker. During the one and a half days she was out, I practised shooting with the bow and arrow, trying to aim for rabbits and squirrels, while Peeta would pick loads of berries and wait for me to say which ones are edible and which aren't. I also picked some medicinal herbs whenever I saw them, but they weren't commonly found here. My skills I'd found with the bow and arrow in the private training session sucked at first. I couldn't hit anything, and I lost about five arrows after I shot them into the distance trying to get squirrels, and missing epically. It took me half an afternoon with no breaks to actually hit a rabbit. This hit had made me feel fantastic, and I didn't stop practising until it was pitch black. My skills had considerably increased, and I was getting used to this bow and arrow. Peeta and I made a tiny fire to cook the rabbit I had caught today, and as soon as it was cooked, we put the fire out. We made a large attempt to push away smoke from our fire, because if the Careers saw the smoke rising, they'd be after us quicker than we could run. Throughout the whole day, we had also changed Rue's leaves once and fed her some more water. There were no deaths that first day Rue was out.

The afternoon she awoke was very stifling and warm. I knew the Gamemakers were trying to get a tribute out there by making them thirsty. The Capitol were probably getting bored with the lack of deaths or interesting scenarios and were trying to make something happen. I knew that something good must happen in order for the Gamemakers to not interfere with the Games. Whenever the Gamemakers interfered with the Games, it was always awful. There was always a death – most probable a horrible painful bloody death. I was still practising using the bow and arrow, hoping to master it for when Rue woke up, while Peeta was picking berries again. Peeta and I had rolled our trousers up to our knees and I had tucked my shirt up higher because it was so warm. We were working hard when we both noticed the rustle from the bush where Rue was laying. She was awakening.

I pulled my arrow down from my bow and jogged over to the bush. Peeta sat with me as we picked off the leaves we'd put on Rue. Her awakening was slow, but it was happening. After half an hour of her stirring gently, her eyes snapped open. I greeted her with a huge smile. "Hey, lazy head." I joked.

Once her eyes had opened, her whole body was awake. She sat up and pulled herself up from the bushes. Her legs were a little shaky at first, but she managed to get a hold of herself pretty quickly. "What happened?" she asked.

"Don't you remember?" I said. "You dropped a tracker jacker nest onto the Careers, but you got a few stings yourself. You've been out a day and a half. We put leaves on you to camouflage you, and fed you water." I told her.

She smiled lightly. "My head still feels a bit funny." She admitted. She sat down on the floor and I passed her an almost empty water bottle.

"Drink it all." I said. "You probably need it."

She was hesitant at first, but her thirst took over and she swallowed it all down in one go. "Thanks." She smiled. "Who died while I was out?"

"Glimmer from District 1 and the girl from District 4 in the tracker jacker attack. Nobody else." I told her.

Her eyes then diverted to the bow I was holding in my tightly in my hand and the set of arrows that were poking out of backpack. Her small smile that had been plastered on her face since she was conscious turned into a full beam. "Peeta told me about how you got your 11." She said. "That's why when I saw Glimmer had dropped them in her attempt to run away from the trackers, I got them. Even though I barely knew what I was doing, thanks to the hallucinations…" she said, getting quieter as she spoke. I pulled her into my arms, giving her a tight hug as my thank you and gratitude for getting the bow and arrow so bravely for me.

When I pulled away, she wasted no time with going into full Rue mode. She had quickly come to same realisation that I had earlier this morning about the Gamemakers getting bored with the lack of deaths and she told us that we needed a plan to spice things up a little bit to get the Gamemakers to leave us alone until more people died. It suddenly came to me that at the very minimum, two of us were going to die in a few more days. We had to. There was no possible way there could be three winners. We were going to have to spilt up as a group somehow. Although I knew Peeta would never leave my side. He was planning on protecting me until he died, but that was so unfair to Rue. I had no idea how, when the time came, I could spilt away from her, knowing that either one of us could die. She had become a close friend to me in the arena. I hadn't really many friends back home apart from my sister and pets (Lady the goat and Buttercup the cat), but I knew that Rue and I were friends.

I shook the thoughts away from me. I didn't have to worry about that right now, I just had to think of a plan to get the Games moving a little so that the Gamemakers would leave us alone. _What tributes are left? _I asked myself. Well there was me, Peeta and Rue. There were three more Careers left. The girl I'd nicknamed Foxface from District 5. Rue's district partner, Tresh. And one more… the boy from District 3. That made nine of us. I shuddered at the thought of 15 people dead in a matter of just a week now, I think. 15 people dead for no real cause other than peoples entertainment.

"I think we have to do something with the Careers." Peeta said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked at him bewildered, and so did Rue. The Careers were ten times more powerful than all three of us put together and we knew it. We couldn't do anything with them. There was no chance. "Come on. Think about it. Why are the Careers so good in these Games? Why do they always last so long?" he asked us, his blue eyes wide, full of plans and thoughts.

"Because they're so much stronger than us." I said.

"Why?" he asked again.

"Because they've been trained." I said again, not understanding his point.

Rue began to snap her fingers together, making a clicking noise. "Oh!" she said. "I know. What Prim said, and because they've always, like, had enough to eat and were given everything they wanted and had better lives than most of the other districts."

I nodded my head in agreement. God, for a 12 year old, Rue could certainly figure out stuff quickly. As I've said a million times, she's clever. It wouldn't surprise me if she could win this somehow. I knew if I couldn't win, and Peeta couldn't win, I would want her to. Actually, I wouldn't mind whether Peeta or her won. I considered them both as friends. It's strange how the arena, the most unsafe place known to man, has caused me to make friends with people. But at home, the safest place I have ever known, I had no friends at all.

"So, how do they get there food in the arena?" Peeta asked, now focusing on Rue, knowing she could answer his questions better than I could – but even I knew the answers to that. Sponsors.

"Sponsors." Rue said, echoing my thoughts. She was quiet for a minute, full in thought, before she spoke again. "We need to find there camp. We need to see where their supplies are, and see if we can get rid of some. Without their supplies, they're nothing."

"Well they're still big and strong." I said, my head looking at the floor. I didn't know how this was going to work. I wasn't keen on their plan at all. It would just get us all killed.

"Yeah, Prim. But without water or food, they won't be big and strong for much longer." Peeta said.

"But won't sponsors just send them more food?" I said, feeling exasperated. "I'm pretty sure they've got enough sponsors to get them more food."

"That's not the point." Rue said. "The point is, if we can destroy their food, it will scare them. And sponsors may be also scared to send more stuff too because they may think it's just going to get destroyed again."

I nodded along to what they were saying, barely paying much attention now. I felt a little useless to the group. There were Peeta and Rue being so clever and making plans and practically could be winning the Games, but I was here just sitting with my bow and arrow not helping in any way. After a couple more minutes of them talking and my mind wandering away onto more thoughts of Katniss, wondering whether she would like me using her bow and arrow or not or whether it would just shock her, Rue stood up and began to climb a tree.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"The Career camp." She said, not stopping climbing.

"What? Why?" I asked, but she was too high to hear me now.

"Weren't you listening?" asked Peeta. "She's going to find their camp. It's almost always at the Cornucopia, so that's where she's going. She's going to observe them for a little bit and see if she can form a plan and then come back to us when it starts getting dark."

"She's only just bloody woken up from a mini coma, Peeta!" I said, my voice raising a little. "She can't do that."

"She has to. She's our only hope. She could hide herself in the trees well and we all know the Careers can't even climb trees." Peeta said. He put his rough, muscly hands onto my weak thin shoulders. "She'll be fine. Now go practise some more." He said, pointing at my bow and arrow.

And so Peeta and I continued how we had before Rue had woken. Me, practising to hunt. Him, picking berries.

My thoughts didn't leave the subject of Rue until she arrived back at what seemed to become our camp now. And boy, did she have some stuff to tell us that night.


	18. Chapter 18 The Plan

_**Chapter 18**_

I was stood concealed by a large canopy of trees right outside of the Career's camp. I could see the golden Cornucopia gleaming in the scorching sun. The Careers had just left to search out the fire that Rue had just lit, not knowing it was a booby trap. Guarding the Career's camp was the District 3 boy tribute. He looked slim and slightly weak and was holding a spear. He was totally unaware of the girl, me, watching him from the bushes armed with a bow and arrow.

It turned out that the Career's sponsors gifts were piled in a huge mountain. Rue had found this out the moment she had arrived at their camp as it was totally out in the open. It was guarded by the rewired mines from our platforms and so was completely booby trapped. To get through the booby traps, you had to tread carefully between the traps – but that wasn't what I was going to do. The huge mountain was guarded all the time by the District 3 boy. He must've offered himself to the Careers, in a hope to keep his life, by giving them something useful to do with him instead of killing him for now. According to Rue, who had told Peeta and I all this information last night after returning from their camp to ours, the District 3 boy was a very bad guard. Throughout the time that Rue had been keeping watch at their camp, he hadn't even noticed her rustling around the trees nearby, let alone the District 5 girl tribute who had made her way around the booby trap while he wasn't looking and the Careers were out hunting to kill.

But now here I was, at their camp, ready to fire my bow and arrow and complete the plan. The plan was thought up by the clever minds of my allies. I would basically have to go to the Careers camp on my own (which is completely and utterly terrifying to me, but it was something I had to do) and shoot an arrow at one of the mines. This would set off the other mines, ending up in a complete blowing up the Career's supply of food, weapons and medicine and hopefully I would be fine and unhurt from the blow. While this was happening, to divert the Careers, Rue and Peeta would set off a series of fires together and hopefully the Careers would go running to try and find them considering they hadn't had a kill in almost three days now. They would move as soon as they set off the fire, and light another one, moving after that one too. After that, they would hide somewhere in a tree. Rue and I had a mockingjay whistle that we would use to signal if we were okay and safe and coming soon. My heart strings pulled when I heard Rue sing to the mockingjays and hearing them sing back. It reminded me of Katniss. Peeta had gave my hand a reassuring squeeze when the mockingjays were singing back. It made me remember that Peeta would be feeling the same hurt with the reminder of Katniss. I'd never felt so further away from her, but when I held the bow and arrow, I felt like she was right with me.

After a minute or so of the fire burning, I decided I would have to try and hit the mine now. I was scared out of my skin. My whole body was shaking. I felt the same way I did when I was waiting to go in the arena. I knew I couldn't wait any longer when I saw a flicker of smoke from the second fire. The Careers would soon be growing suspicious. I drew back the arrow as far as I could and closed one eye, leaving the other to focus completely on the mine I was aiming for. I took a deep heavy slow breath and let the arrow go. It hit perfectly on the mine.

Within seconds, the rest of the mines exploded. The full force of the millisecond after each other explosions of the mines hit me hard, pushing me off my feet and backwards into the trees and on the forest floor. My head and back hit the floor with such a hard impact, I felt woozy straightaway and I couldn't breathe properly. I couldn't move. There was a ringing in my ears from the huge noise the explosion made. I was lying on the floor, knowing I had to move, but my legs wouldn't move. No part of my body was moving. My lungs were barely working, either. I was wheezing and felt breathless, as if I had just ran miles and miles. My head's wooziness was getting stronger, and I couldn't refrain from closing my eyes. The headache I was getting from banging it on the floor took over and made me feel almost sick. Before I could even attempt to stop myself, I had fallen unconscious and my whole world had turned into blackness.

And I was only about 100 metres away from the Careers camp.


	19. Chapter 19 The Aftermath of the Plan

_**Chapter 19**_

I awoke with a start at the sound of the Capitol anthem playing while their seal shone brightly in the sky. It was pitch black, and I was half concealed by bushes that lay on the forest floor where I had fallen from the explosion and half of me was showing out in the open. Immediately, without thinking, I tried to move my body so I was more concealed, but a sharp pain hit my ankle. I looked down at it and saw that it was badly bruised, and completely out of place. I knew immediately from seeing my mother fixing this exact problem after helping people who were caught in the outskirts of mine explosions what my problem was with my ankle. It was dislocated. It must of dislocated when I had hit the floor from the explosion. I was sure of it.

I looked back up towards the sky to see today's death, or deaths. I prayed to God that neither Peeta or Rue's face would shine in the sky. My preys were answered when the only face that was shown was the one of the District 3 boy tribute who had been guarding the Careers camp. They must of killed him after their stuff was destroyed – he was no use to them anymore, and he had failed them. A shudder went through my spine at the boy's death, but I knew I couldn't concentrate on him right now. I had to move away from here. I was so close to their camp, and I knew that back wherever Peeta and Rue were, they would be going out of their minds.

I tried to drag myself along the forest floor, but the floor was full of twigs and leaves and every time I made the slightest movement, there was a tremendous amount of noise against the pitch silence. In the end, I rolled myself into a bush making as little noise as I possibly could and lay down trying to conceal myself with the leaves.

I looked down at my ankle, but I could barely see it in this light. I knew how to relocate bones. I'd practised many a time with my mother on miners, but I couldn't do it here. I would probably cry out in pain, as the miners often did this when we had fixed their dislocated joints, and I couldn't cry out in pain here. The Careers would find me within seconds and kill me.

I fell into an uneasy sleep that night in the bush, but I was woken by a familiar rough hand in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes warily even though the touch of the hand was familiar to me, I was still petrified. I saw the face of Peeta in the moonlight. His blue orbs shined at me. He couldn't conceal his smile. He didn't speak as he picked me up carefully and quietly. I winced in pain because of my ankle. Peeta frowned at my wince and his face fell when he saw my ankle, but he didn't stop moving. He held me firmly and carried me for what felt like a year. My ankle was swinging as we walked and the pain was intense. I'd never been in so much pain before in my life.

When we stopped walking, I saw Rue sitting inside a bush, her eyes widening in horror as she saw me swaying in Peeta's arms. "What happened?" she whispered hurriedly, reaching my side as Peeta lay me down on the forest floor near a bush, ready to be concealed if needed.

"I don't know. I found her a hundred meters or so away from the Careers camp. It's a miracle they didn't see her." He said quietly, stroking my hair. "I'm so thankful she's alive."

I couldn't help but smile when he said this. He was still protecting me. I was so glad he was. I didn't know what would of happened if he didn't find me back then. The Careers probably would of found me by the time the sun came up and they went on the hunt for their sponsor gift destroyer after realising that they'd gotten away and were still alive. Peeta had practically saved my life. No, he had saved my life. I was so thankful.

I tried to speak to tell him of my thanks, but I couldn't get a word out my mouth. I was still feeling breathless and woozy from the hit I had earlier on. I let out a crackled breath and using all my strength, I said one word. "Water."

"We haven't got any left." Peeta said. His face was as hard as stone when saying this. "We'll go looking tomorrow for some, but we've got to get you better first, okay?" he told me slowly and gently.

Peeta lifted up my trouser and pulled off my shoe a little bit, revealing my now very swollen dislocated ankle to Rue. She let out a gasp and clasped her hands to her mouth. "What are we going to do? What is wrong with her ankle? Has she broken it?" she asked. Peeta shrugged in response.

I was in angst knowing that I knew what was wrong with me but I could barely speak to tell them. I knew I wouldn't be able to tell them what to do without the use of speech. I tried to sit myself up, in hope I would be able to do it myself, but the pain pushed me back to the ground as a yelp escaped from my lips.

"Prim, do you know what's wrong with your ankle?" Peeta asked, reading my inner healers mind. I nodded back to him. "Do you know what to do?" he asked. I nodded again. "Okay. You're going to have to tell us what to do. Just one word at a time. You can do it." he said calmly. He had a very persuasive tone to his voice.

After a minute of concentrating on my breathing and trying to get it back to normal, I managed to speak a little. "Dislocated." I said breathily. "Need to put it… back into… place." With every word I was managing to get out, my breathing got easier and the words seemed to flow better. "Hold my ankle gently… and turn it until it's back… where it should normally… be." Deep breath. Deep breath. "Then push. Push hard. Push up. Push… into place."

Peeta nodded, taking in all of my words. He and Rue touched my ankle very lightly, but I still winced. I shoved my hands further up my sleeves and shoved the remaining material in my mouth, so I could brace the pain and hold in any screams. I knew this was going to hurt, especially because they didn't really know what they were doing even if I had briefly explained. They took a firm grip of my ankle together and I yelped into the material. They didn't waste any time when they turned the bones around until it looked like it should. My body reflexes were trying make me push away from the pain and I had to hold my own body down. They then pushed it very hard and firmly into place, causing me to let out a loud shout of pain. The shout seemed to echo around the forest walls and I was terrified someone would hear and come find us, but nobody did. I was still on guard though.

The pain was still rippling around my ankle even after they placed it back. I could move it gently, but I didn't want to put much weight on it right now and I asked Peeta if he could just leave me covered in the bush for the night.

"I'll stay on watch tonight." Peeta volunteered. "I'll wake you up after a few hours Rue, but I think Prim needs more rest."

Rue agreed and she began to climb a tree while Peeta sat with me in the bush. I leaned against him as I covered myself in leaves. "What are we going to do tomorrow, Peeta?" I asked. I was glad to hear that my breathing was almost completely back to normal.

"Well, I think Rue and I are going to go on search for water and pick berries on the way." He said. "You can rest, and lay off the ankle."

"I need to do something. I've barely done anything for the team." I said, feeling guilty.

"What are you talking about?" he chucked lightly. "You got the knife for us from your sponsors. You destroyed the Careers stuff. You got your ankle dislocated for us. And you fed us after you got the bow and arrow."

"But I wouldn't of done any of that if it weren't for you guys. You two come up with all the great plans." I said.

"Prim. Don't be silly," he said looking into my eyes. "You're a great value to our little… team. Now get to sleep." He said, tapping me on the nose playfully as if he was trying to pretend tell me off. I laughed slightly as I settled with my head on his shoulder and fell asleep.

My last thoughts before I drifted into the world of sleep was of how safe Peeta made me feel. I knew he would go to no ends to protect me. I couldn't believe how amazing this boy could be. He was such a good friend. Probably my best friend. I do so wish we could both come home. And Rue. If only we could all go home.


	20. Chapter 20 The Quest To Find Water

_**Chapter 20**_

That morning, Rue and Peeta set off in search for water together. It was a possibly dangerous task, but we all figured out the route to the lake in the arena, and so Rue and Peeta were going to go opposite ways to the lake in hope to find a stream of some sort that they could collect water from instead of the lake. They left me with strict instructions of just to make sure I rested my ankle, only walking lightly for five minutes at a time. They only wanted the best for me and my ankle, of course, but it sure annoyed me. I felt so useless once again to my allies, just sitting around doing nothing. I just wanted to pick up my bow and arrow and get some rabbit or squirrel for dinner tonight.

Our plan to destroy the Careers sponsors gifts had word great – minus my ankle, of course. I was pretty sure that the Careers would be furious with whoever they had believed to of done it, but I hoped that they had no idea that it was us. The plan had also made the Gamemakers lay off a little bit with the interference in the Games. Our plan against the Careers must of really spiced up the viewing. I bet the Capitol citizens were going crazy watching the Careers go out of their minds trying to find some more food or water or medicine and more weapons. Their sponsors would probably of sent more food by now, but I bet their mentors (the ones in charge of actually giving the food) would be refraining from sending food in case it would get attacked again.

About midday, I decided to actually get up out of the bush. I was bored out of mind sitting there doing nothing. I picked up my bow and arrow and hobbled out of the bush. I put some weight onto my ankle, but it was still slightly swollen from being dislocated for so long. I put the weight on and off as I hobbled trying to see if I could find any animals to shoot, but my hobbling was loud and any animal that was around, I was surely scaring away. I unloaded the bow and arrow and just focused on walking. I kept putting more and more weight on it. It hurt, but I knew I had to get over it and make my ankle better. Not being able to walk or run in this arena was dangerous, and any medicines to help it heal faster would cost a bomb from sponsors.

I was just getting used to walking around on my ankle when I heard a loud rustle from a distance. The rustle was getting closer and closer and louder. Whatever was coming towards me was running fast. I looked around my surroundings desperately, but there was no bushes for me to fall into and try to hide. I started to hobble as quickly as I could in an attempt to find a bush, but the owner of the running rustle found me and grabbed my shoulders. I felt a whole flood of relief hit me when I felt the familiar touch of Peeta's hands. I turned around quickly, thinking that he must of come back with water to see I wasn't here and probably started to panic. But when I turned around to look at him, I saw an urgency in his eyes. His pupils were huge, and his face full of fear. I noticed that Rue wasn't with him.

"What?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"I've lost her." He said, his voice dripping with the same tremble of fear.

"What do you mean?" I said. My face was being painted with the same fear as Peeta's.

"We… we were searching for water and we decided to spilt up, because we'd find it quicker that way, and neither of us wanted to leave you at camp alone when you were so vulnerable." He said. He was holding my shoulders still, his grip getting tighter and tighter the more fearful he got as he explained. "And we used the same mockingjay call, so if one of us found water, we'd make the call and find each other. But when I found the water in a stream and I made the call she didn't come and I don't know where she is, Prim, I don't know, I don't know where's gone." He had begun to babble. I could see how upset he truly was. I didn't even know he really cared about Rue this much. Maybe it's because he knows that I care about her. A lot.

"We need to find her. You need to show me the way." I said. I tried to keep my calm. We would never find her if we were running around like headless chickens. And we'd make a lot of noise and get killed.

Peeta began to do a light jog with me, knowing that my ankle would be hurting considerably from it. We stopped almost every minute so Peeta could make the mockingjay call. The pain of being on my ankle was strong, but I dismissed it firmly knowing that I had to find Rue no matter what. We stopped again to make to make the mockingjay call when a small scream came from a little distance. "PEETA!" it screamed. "PEETA! PEETA!" I knew immediately that the voice belonged to Rue.

Without any regard for my ankle, I began to full sprint where the voice was coming from. I loaded my bow and arrow while I was running, just in case. I found her pretty quickly, struggling to get free from a net in a trap. "Primrose!" she said, her eyes lighting with joy at the sight of me. Peeta was by my side within seconds, pulling the knife we'd gotten from the sponsors out of the backpack that was on his back. He began to cut away at the string that was holding her in while I was trying to push the netting off her when all of a sudden my senses picked up a noise. The hairs on the back of neck raised and my eyes widened in fear. I could feel someone watching us. The same person who must of set the trap. I looked carefully out of the corner of my eye, trying to make it unobvious that I had noticed that the person was here to maybe by myself a little time while I figured out what I should do, but only one answer stuck out in my mind. I'd have to kill the person before they killed us.

Before my mind could contemplate my first kill, I stood up and released my arrow that was still loaded from before on my way here to finding Rue, and it hit the person right in the heart, killing them instantly. But before it hit him in his heart, he threw a spear in the direction that Peeta and Rue were standing as she had just got out of the net. I whipped my head around, not even bothering to see who I had just killed, to see that Rue had collapsed on the forest floor with a spear in her stomach.


	21. Chapter 21 Goodbye, Rue

_**Chapter 21**_

I practically fell to the floor and crawled towards Rue, who was now lying in a pool of crimson red blood as she pulled the spear from her gut. "No, no, no, no, no," I said, my hands clasping hers as her eyes flickered, staring up at me. "You're ok. You're ok. You are, Rue, you are." I lied, desperately wishing it was true, but I knew that nothing could save her, no amount of sponsors in the world could possibly save her.

Rue shook her head up at me, shaking my lies away. "Thank you," she croaked.

"For what?" I asked.

"For everything you've done since we've met," she said, barely getting the words out. I had no idea how much effort it was taking her to say these last words to me, but it meant so much. I began to cry. I didn't even make an attempt to stop the tears from flowing. I bent down and kissed our interlocked hands. "You have to win." She said.

"You're the best friend I've ever met, Rue." I said. "You're so strong and so-"

"Can you sing?" she asked, interrupting me. I nodded, remembering about how she had told me of her love for music and singing. I decided to sing an old song that my father would sing to Katniss and I when we couldn't sleep at night. I would sing Rue to sleep.

"_Deep in the meadow,_

_Under the willow._

_A bed of grass,_

_A soft green pillow._

_Lay down your head,_

_And close your eyes._

_And when they open, _

_The sun will rise."_

I sung croakily between sobs and sniffles. The mockingjays had begun to copy the sweet melody coming from lips, and as I finished the verse, Rue's eyes closed as she let go of life. I felt her wrist and there was no pulse. She was gone. Two cannons then went off and I was reminded of the person I'd killed who was just laying a few metres away. I looked back, still holding Rue's hands firmly, and saw that it was a Career. It was the District 1 boy with brown hair. I'd killed a Career. And not only that, I had killed. I'd actually murdered someone. He was my first kill. I'd killed someone with a family and friends and most liking a girlfriend. But he'd killed Rue. Rue, the innocent twelve year old, who deserved to go home. I looked back at Rue's lifeless body and let go of her hands, shaking.

My sobbing was uncontrollable now. I didn't know what to do. I knew I had to leave because soon a hovercraft cold come to collect both dead bodies, but I couldn't leave her. Peeta stood up and began to walk away. "Where the hell are you going?" I asked fiercely. _How could he just leave Rue like that? _I thought. But Peeta didn't reply as he walked towards a small cluster of flowers and bent down to pick them up. He walked over slowly back to Rue and I and placed the flowers in her hands over her wound in her stomach. I looked up at him, still crying, realising what he was doing. It was so lovely and thoughtful. Of course. Peeta would never leave Rue like that. He would come up the sweetest and loveliest way to leave her body, and leave the citizens of Panem to know how much we loved and respected Rue and also to let them know her death was an awful thing.

I began to walk to other nearby clusters of flowers, picking them all and walking back to place them around Rue and covering her in pretty, colourful flowers.

When we finished covering her in flowers, she looked so pretty. Her wound was covered by hundreds of colourful petals. Her hair was perfectly placed around her face, and she looked so peaceful. As if she was just sleeping. I lent down and kissed her forehead. Peeta copied. "I love you, Rue." I said as Peeta and I joined hands in condolences and we walked away from Rue. I tried to remain calm as we walked in no particular direction and not to scream curses to the Capitol for doing this. All of this. For making the Games. For reaping Rue. For reaping me. For reaping Peeta. For reaping all of the innocent children who have died in the past 74 years that the Games have been on.

Peeta picked me up after a little while of walking, it was getting dark and my ankle was throbbing violently and I needed to let it rest. It would never heal properly if I kept walking on it and putting too much weight on it. He carried my limp body in his arms as he struggled to climb a tree. It took a couple of minutes, but he managed to get us up there using some old tips that Rue had told us about climbing trees. My heart gave a pang. _Rue._

We settled on a thick branch, big enough and strong enough for the both of us. We pulled out a sleeping bag from the pack that Rue had fetched so bravely from the Cornucopia. We shoved both of our bodies in the sleeping bag and both cried. The sky was getting pretty dark now and I knew that the Capitol seal would appear soon showing the faces of the deaths today. I began to wonder whether the Careers would be upset for the District 1 boy's death, but I soon realised that they probably wouldn't care at all. They were just killing machines. One more death was nothing to them, it was just something that helped them get closer to winning.

We both stayed awake, crying silently, until the seal shone in the sky. The anthem played out. The boy from District 1's face lit up and I remembered how he was my first kill. I had to kill him because he would of killed me, but I felt like a murderer. I had actually killed someone. My actions had caused a life to disappear. I felt sick with myself. How could the Careers do this? Kill so easily? When I felt so bad killing someone who himself was so evil? I began to cry a little more and Peeta put him arm around me to comfort me.

Rue's face then came up in the sky. The Capitol had chosen a photo of her that displayed her weak and young side, even though I knew that that weakness they were trying to show wasn't actually real. My heart ached for her when she disappeared out of the sky. It hit me that I would never get to talk to her again. Never get to see her smile again. I would never get to know her properly outside of the Games, or meet her family. Her family. They must be so devastated. Her brother and her sister she had told me about must be going out of their minds. I began to cry even harder.

"It will be ok, Prim." Peeta said. I could hear in his voice he was trying to stop his tears from resurfacing. "You will win this. You'll win it for her, for me, for Katniss, for District 12." I shook my head as I sobbed more. "You will. You have to. Rue said so herself."

"If I win, that means you have to die," I said.

He nodded. "I know." He said. "But that's what I want. You know that. Now go to sleep, I'll watch for a few hours then I'll have to wake you. I need sleep too." He said, laughing a breath, trying to make the situation a little lighter. It didn't work though. I began to cry a little less hard and I put my head into Peeta's chest. I felt much safer when I was with him. He was so protective over me. He was like a brother. I cried myself to sleep and the nightmare of Rue's death played over and over in my head as I slept.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I dread it anyway.


	22. Chapter 22 The Infection

_**Chapter 22**_

When I woke Peeta up at the crack of dawn from our night shift agreement, we packed the sleeping bag and climbed down the tree in silence. We continued the silence as we got some rations of food for breakfast and began to walk uphill. I didn't really know we were walking towards or for exactly, but as if on some unspoken agreement, I began to get my bow and arrow ready to hunt any nearby creatures that may be cooked later while Peeta picked berries and asked for my expertise on whether they were safe or not. We continued like this until around midday when I caught a squirrel that high up in a tree. The squirrel died when my arrow hit it, but it only fell two branches down the tree.

"I'll go fetch it for you." Peeta offered as he began to scale the tree.

"Thanks," I called up to him. He looked down and gave a little forced smile in reply. I leaned against the tree waiting for him to get down and bring me the squirrel. I had worked up quite a hunger with Peeta today as we had been walking quiet far, and I couldn't wait for him to get down with our next meal. My thoughts focused back to Rue as I waited for him. I hadn't really stopped thinking about her since she'd died. I felt as if a part of me died with her. It still had barely sunk in that she wouldn't come skipping back to Peeta and I with a handful of berries ready for us to eat with our dinner that night, or that she wouldn't beckon me down to sleep on a branch in a tree with her ever again.

Tears were just threatening to resurface again, when Peeta fell with a hard thump next to my feet. He fell on his face and I could hear his deep stifled moans. "Oh my God, Peeta, are you okay? Did you fall?" I asked hurriedly, trying to turn him over to face me. I was horrified when I saw the fall had generated a massive cut along his forehead. It was deep, and was bleeding all over his face. His nose was also bruised along with his jaw. The rest of him seemed okay, suggesting that he must of fallen face first.

I pulled off my jacket and put pressure along his cut to stop the bleeding. He moaned loudly. But my jacket was getting wet with bloody quickly and it was a very cold day in the forest and I shouldn't of really been without my jacket. I took the jacket off his cut, unsure of what to do. I remembered the bandages in Rue's pack, but the blood would just soak the bandages within seconds. I needed to stitch his forehead.

I began to flap about. "I don't know what to do. It's too deep and large for a bandage. It needs stitches. It's going to get infected pretty quickly if I don't get it stitched." I honestly told Peeta. He nodded, but only lightly. I force opened his eyes and saw that he had concussion. _Fantastic. _I thought sarcastically. "I need stitches." I said again loudly, hoping that Haymitch would get the message and send me something, but nothing came. _That bastard. _I thought. I needed the stitches so badly, but they weren't going to come and I couldn't wait any longer or else who knows what infections could get into his cut.

I quickly got the bandages and water bottle from Rue's backpack. I tipped a little bit of water from the bottle onto his cut, to clean it slightly, and wrapped the bandages thickly and tightly around Peeta's head. I was right, of course, about his bandages being soaked in blood, but we were already running low on bandages and I knew I would have to wait a little longer before putting fresh ones on. I hoped that with the tightness I'd put on the bandages, it may stop the bleeding. Or induce the concussion more. _God, I wish I had my Mother here. She would know so much better than me on what to do._

I dragged Peeta and I to a nearby bush and sat him down conceal both of us. I waited for almost an hour until Peeta's concussion slowly went away, and in which the hour he threw up because of the concussion. He kept moaning all the way through the hour. "Could you be more much more of a moan?" I sarcastically asked him when he was coming out of his concussion.

He moaned again on purpose. He lifted his hand to his head and touched the blood that was seeping through. "Can I have fresh bandages yet?" he asked.

I sighed as I took off the bandages from his head, knowing that the bleeding would probably restart when I took off the bandages and washed them a little with the water. I put a thinner layer of bandages on which again, within around fifteen minutes this time, were blood-soaked. I only had enough bandages left for one more head wrapping – and it would be a very thin head wrapping at that… "At least it's gradually slowing." I said.

"It'll be okay. As long as it doesn't get infected." Said Peeta warily. He took the water bottle from me and had a big gulp. I did the same after him, suddenly realizing my thirst. We decided to stay in the bush all night, considering Peeta now had a fear of trees. When he told me this, it made me genuinely laugh for the first time since Rue died. Peeta was a naturally funny guy. He could make the best out of any situation.

Before we slept in the bush that night I washed and changed Peeta's bandages with the last of the bandage and made a silent prayer that Peeta wouldn't get infected from the cut. We did night shifts again, with Peeta sleeping first and me sleeping second. When I woke up after the very few hours of nightmare riddled sleep, I checked Peeta's cut. I undid the bandage carefully, making sure we could put it back on afterwards to act as a pathetic layer of protection, but when I looked at his cut I was greeted by a deep yellow and green bus seeping out of his cut. The smallest parts of his cut had scabbed over, but it was mostly still an open wound with mixed pus and dried blood and new blood. The colour of the pus told me the worst. It had gotten infected.

I looked up at the sky, betting on every whim I had that the Gamemakers had something to do with this. I bet they knew how easily it would be to get infected and sent out the perfect germs to create a horrible infection. I cursed under my breath.

"What? Is it bad?" Peeta asked with a huge amount of fear in his tone.

"Yeah." I admitted. His face fell, but I didn't want to beat around the bush. I couldn't lie to him.

Within seconds of me telling him this, an announcement boomed through the forest. "Attention, attention tributes." It said. _What the hell could the Gamemakers want?_ I thought. The Gamemakers rarely make announcements throughout the Games. "There will be a feast today at the Cornucopia. But this will be no ordinary feast." My heart skipped a beat. I knew what they were doing now. I knew full well. "Each of you need something. You need something desperately. Today at the Cornucopia will be bags with your Districts number on. They will be put out at noon. You may go collect them when you want. Good luck. Oh, and, remember." The voice snarled. " May the odds be ever in your favour." It finished. They _had _infected Peeta on purpose and then set up a perfect medicine in the arena, luring me in to go fetch it and help save Peeta from this (for all I know deadly) infection.

"No. No, Prim, you can't." Peeta said, realising I had worked it out in my mind that his medicine needed to get rid of his infection was going to be there. "It's a slaughter house. They're just luring you in to kill you."

"I know," I said. "But you could die from this infection. I have to go, Peeta. Please." I begged.

"No. I can't let you. If you die out there and don't come back then I don't know what I'm going to do." He said.

"I know what you'll do – you'll die. You'll die from the infection in your cut." I said bluntly. "And if I don't go, you'll die from the infection in your cut. Either way, Peeta, you die. The only way you don't die is if I go and get your medicine and I live through it."

He was silenced as the truth set upon him. He knew it was true. I couldn't believe I had been so harshly honest with him. I'm never normally like that. Back home at 12, I would say whatever made others happy.

"Take your bow and arrow." Peeta said grimly after a few minutes of silence between us while he realised there was no persuading me.

"You didn't think I was honestly going to go without it, did you?" I laughed lightly, trying to make him smile. It didn't work. He just looked at me flatly. I knew I was hurting him by endangering my life because he had sworn to protect to me to the whole of Panem before we were forced into these Games – but this was something I had to do.

I sat with Peeta, both of us snacking on the only packets of dried fruit and beef we had left, before I saw by the position of the sun that it was nearly noon. I picked up the bow and arrow and made my way out the bush. "Hey, Prim," Peeta said. "Do it for Katniss." He said, repeating his infamous motivational line that always seemed to have a confidence boosting effect on me. I nodded firmly and turned around and began to walk when he shouted again. "And do it for me, of course!" he laughed. I turned back and gave another genuine laugh and began to walk to the general direction I believed the Cornucopia was in.

_Let the Games begin._ I thought as I saw the golden gleam of the Cornucopia and the large table in front it with four bags on. One was labelled '12'. That held the medicine that would make Peeta better. _Let the Games bloody begin._


	23. Chapter 23 The Cornucopia Feast

_**Chapter 23**_

Blood was pumping so quickly around my body that I could feel my own chest throbbing as I sprinted towards the golden gleam of the Cornucopia. My bow and arrow was unloaded, but I had it tightly in my left hand, ready to use just in case. I was so close to the table now, I could practically hear the bag with my districts number on screaming my name, egging me on the get it and save Peeta's life. I grabbed the bag the second I was near enough and clutched it tightly as I began to run. _Thank god. I'm going to get out here alive. _I thought. But I thought too soon, clearly, as I was tackled roughly to the ground, causing me to drop my bow and arrow and the bag that contained Peeta's medicine. It wasn't until after a minute or two of struggling against the strength of the tribute that they pinned me down and I saw it was the last surviving Career girl, the one from District 2.

She started at me with her dark eyes full of no emotion but hate. She snarled a smile when she saw she had me pinned. "What in the bag, hmm?" she said teasingly, grabbing a knife quickly from her trouser pocket. "Aw, you here for your little sister's boyfriend? Too bad you can't help him now, huh?" she lifted the knife and let it's silver blade shine against the sun before putting it to my forehead and gently slicing my skin. Blood trickled down my face as I struggled against her tight grip, trying to move my limbs, but she was much too strong for me which was strange to me, as when she was up close to me, it was more obvious that she was in fact younger than eighteen like her fellow tributes. I wonder what caused her to volunteer. She must really hate the world. "You know who else you couldn't help? Your little… friend. What was her name? Rue?" She growled. _Rue. My Rue. _My heart gave a pang of emotion. "Well, we killed her." She continued.

Anger flooded my body. Had she been a part of the trap that had caused Rue's death? I began to feel a strong hatred for the girl on top of me. Before I could even think, I spat in her face. My spit landed in her eye and the look of hate in her eyes deepened as she wiped my saliva off her face. "And now, we're going to kill you." She said, lifting her knife, ready to shove it into my heart. _This is it, this is my death. _I thought. A million thoughts crossed through my mind, thoughts of such like my family and my pets and Rue and Peeta and Haymitch and Effie and Cinna and…

But my thoughts stopped as the girl was pulled off me by a familiar looking huge figure. I couldn't see his face, and I began to shake, thinking that it could be her district partner Cato, coming to finish me off himself. When my limbs began to respond to my urgent need to move, I heard the voice coming from the huge figure and knew that it wasn't Cato – it was Tresh.

"What did you say? What did you say about Rue?" he shouted in her face as he held her by her collar on her jacket, shoving her against the Cornucopia wall. She struggled against him, but his grip was far too tight for her. "You kill her?"

"No!" she lied, shouting back, still struggling. Her legs were flaying and her fingers trying to pull Tresh's hands off her.

"Uh-huh. You killed her!" he shouted, banging her head against the wall again.

"CATO! CATO!" she screeched, her voice full of a vulnerability I'd never seen or heard in this murderous girl. Before she could scream the boy's name again, he shoved her against the Cornucopia repeatedly until she was dead. He threw her limp body against the floor and a canon sounded. He turned around to look at me, his yellow eyes screaming with the same amount of hate that the District 2 girls did when she pinned me down. I knew I should be grabbing my stuff and running as fast I could right now, but I seemed to be stuck to the ground with fright, standing helplessly.

"What happened with you and Rue?" he said gruffly, pointing his large fingers at me, coming closer and closer to me. My whole body was stifled with fear.

"I… We… Peeta and I… We were allies with her and we went to look for water and she got lost and stuck under this… this, net thing that the… District 2 girl and her friends made and she died and I… I sung to her until she passed on and covered her in flowers and… and…" I had begun to sob thinking of my beautiful dead friend Rue. Her face flashed up into my mind. I closed my eyes and let the tears flow. I tried to rub them away, but nothing stopped them from flowing. I looked back up at Tresh who was still standing close to me. His eyes of hatred looked much more soft.

"Go." He said deeply, looking down at the floor. "Go. Now."

"You're not going to kill me?" I asked.

"Just this time 12. Just this time. For Rue." He said as he began to run quickly away with his district bag in his hand. Without hesitation, I grabbed my bow and arrows and my district bag with Peeta's medicine in. I was so thankful I'd gotten it as well now that my head had also been cut. I began to run back to the direction where I believed I had come from and after ten minutes of full on sprinting and found Peeta the bush, waiting for my arrival. His eyes shone with a happiness I'd never seen before in him.

"Prim!" he said gleefully jumping up from the bush to hug me. "I'm so glad your back, you took so long, I heard a canon, I didn't know what the hell had happened to you." He said, pulling me away from him at arm's length. "What the hell happened to your head?" he asked, touching it lightly. The touch made me wince. I began to dread what had gotten into the cut already. Maybe the infection that was going around that got Peeta's cut was in mine too. But I had the medicine now – thank dear god.

"The girl from two. But it's okay, she's dead now. That's who the canon was for." I told him as I sat down in the bush, still grasping my bow and arrow and the district bag. My head was thumping angrily.

"Did you kill her?" he asked, sitting next to me.

"No. Tresh did." I said. He looked confused, so I explained properly to him. "The girl from two-"

"Clove. That's her name, Clove." Peeta interrupted.

"Okay, well, _Clove _was antagonizing me after she had me pinned and cut. She was mentioning Rue and stuff and Tresh heard. He grabbed her and killed her, basically, and let me go free for this time because I'm Rue's friend." I told him. I closed my eyes shut as the pain in my head was crippling me now. I shoved the district bag into Peeta's hands, hoping he wouldn't ask me any further questions. I really wasn't in the mood to talk. I just almost died. Again.

Peeta opened the bag to reveal to us a silver tub that when opened had inside a thick, gooey substance. Peeta scooped some on his fingers and began to put it onto my cut. A relief filled over me immediately. Whatever this medicine was, it had a pain killing aesthetic in it, and I thanked god for the millionth time today for this. I gave a deep breath of relief. "Ok, now you." I said. I dipped my fingers a little more thickly into the goo than Peeta did, as his cut was larger and more infected. I rubbed into his cut and he gave the same breath of relief. Once I had rubbed the stuff into his cut, we both sat back and let it sink into our cuts. I closed the silver tub and placed it in a backpack, knowing that maybe I'd need the rest for later.

A little less than an hour later, I decided to hunt a little bit before it got too dark. I caught two squirrels – and luckily this time, nobody fell out of a tree trying to get the dead squirrel bodies. I brought them back to Peeta who had been looking for berries the short while I'd been gone. That night, I cooked the squirrels quickly, batting away any tribute revealing smoke while doing so. We feasted that night on the squirrels and berries, and for the first time in the Games, I felt slightly full. It was a glorious feeling and I savoured it, knowing it wouldn't stay for long.

Peeta and I moved into a nearby tree that night, knowing we'd been at our temporary camp for much too long and if anybody happened to walk by, they'd easily see that some tributes were nearby. We walked about a mile until we felt confident with the tree we'd found. Peeta was still fearful of falling out, so I gave him the sleeping bag as a compromise to having to stay in the tree.

Before I fell into the first shift of sleep, I began to count the tributes left in the Games in my head. There was Tresh and Cato, obviously. Me, Peeta. That was four of us. And who else? My mind flashed back to the Cornucopia and I remembered the only bag that was left when I ran away. It said five on it. District 5… that meant, the girl, the foxfaced girl, was still alive. That made five of us.

Four more deaths to go.

Four more deaths until someone gets to go home.


	24. Chapter 24 Nightlock

_**Chapter 24**_

That morning Peeta and I went hunting for squirrels and berries as normal. We decided to spilt up and meet up at little after noon so we could get as much food as we could. That part of getting as much food as we could was especially for me, as Peeta was being a very loud foot today. He was stepping on every twig possible and was beginning to scare away all the animals. When I'd caught a squirrel and a rabbit, I decided that would be enough for us for now and to go back to where we decided to meet up.

I got to the camp and saw several large piles of berries. _Man, Peeta's been hard at work with the berry hunting. _I thought. I walked over to them and noticed that the largest pile of berries were a sweet, blue colour – like blueberries. I reached down to the pile with excitement and picked one up. I'd only ever had blueberries once, and that was in one meal at the Capitol. They were much too of an expensive rare luxury for District 12. In fact, it was never even sold in the markets, not even in the Hob. Katniss had never found blueberries in the forest either, only ever strawberries.

_Wait. _I thought pulling back the blueberry before I put it into my mouth. Blueberries don't grow in the forest - so where would Peeta of found them? That's when it hit me – they weren't blueberries. They were nightlock. Nightlock was a poisonous berry that if eaten would kill you the moment it was swallowed. My mind began to race as I threw the berry on the floor, appalled that I had almost eaten it without inspecting it properly. I knew Katniss would be screaming at the screen when I was about to eat it. I should of known better.

I was just about to pick up and throw the berries away into the forest and to find Peeta to let him know about the unsafe berries when a canon went off. My mind began to race. _Had Peeta eaten the berries already?_ My mind was screaming. I began to run around, speaking as loudly as I could to get Peeta to hear me, but trying not to be too loud so that other tributes could easily find me. "Peeta? Peeta!"

My heart was thumping loudly through my chest, but Peeta's voice shouted nearby. "Prim?" he said. I looked up at the sky with my eyes closed and mouthed a thank you to someone out there that Peeta was alive and that the canon that just sounded wasn't for him. He quickly found me and gave me a tight hug. "You're not dead. You're not dead." He said breathily.

I pulled away from him and saw that in his hands were a another handful of nightlock. "That's nightlock, Peeta. You'd be dead in a minute." I said, grabbing the berries out of his hand and throwing them on the ground.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry." He apologised, smashing the berries into the forest floor and beginning to walk back to the place he'd put the other berries. We sat down next to the berries and I began to work through the different piles of them, telling him which ones were edible and not. It wasn't for a couple of minutes after throwing the inedible berries away from us that I saw the hand sticking out a couple of trees away. I pulled Peeta's shirt and pointed in the direction of the hand. Silently, Peeta and I got up and carefully walked over to the owner of the hand.

I was greeted by the lifeless face of the District 5 girl. She had been the one who the canon was for. I saw a handful of the nightlock in her hands and knew what had killed her immediately. I bent down towards her dead body lying on the forest floor. I felt sorry for the poor girl. She must of felt like she was so close to winning. I pulled her eyelids so they would close. I couldn't stand her eyes just staring out at me. If they were closed, it would seem like she was just sleeping. I didn't want to face the fact she was dead. I hated seeing so much death – that's why I liked healing so much. At least with healing I know I'd of tried to help to save someone from death.

"We'd better go," Peeta said. "So the hovercraft can take her body away."

I nodded and slowly pulled myself away from the girl. It hit me that I didn't know what her name was, just like most of the other tributes that had died.

We walked back to our pile of berries and continued our edible and inedible fashion as before only speaking when we had to. As we ate the edible berries I began to think that tonight in the arena would not be peaceful at all. The past few days had been slightly boring. The last two deaths had been bloodless, and considering that Peeta had gotten better over his infection, Capitol citizens would be getting edgy and tired of the lack of entertainment these past few days. The Gamemakers were surely going to interfere tonight, and there was pretty much nothing I could do to hold it off any longer as now there were only four of us left. And I sure as hell was never going to try and form a plan against Cato or Tresh. They were five times the size of me and could easily crush all of my bones in one try.

Maybe tonight when the Gamemakers interfere would be when I died.

My death was bound to happen soon. My death was pretty delayed in the Games.

My heart crippled at the thought of my death and I dug my head into Peeta's chest to stifle my tears that were full of fear. Peeta put his arms around me comfortingly. I began to dread about how far he would go to protect me.

How far would he go to save my life?


	25. Chapter 25 The Mutts

_** Chapter 25**_

The night's dark sky was covering the arena when Peeta and I next heard the canon. I looked at him with shock. He was still defiantly alive, and so was I, which meant only one thing – that Cato or Tresh had just died. Deep down, I wished it was Tresh, just so I wouldn't have to attempt to kill him or he wouldn't have to attempt to kill me. I had gained a respect for Tresh ever since he didn't kill me at the Cornucopia feast. I would have no way of attempting to kill him now. But another part of me wished it was Cato just because, well… it was Cato. He was a Career. The last Career.

The thought shuddered through me knowing that soon I'd face to face either one of these beasts. It was obvious I was going to die soon. Of course, it never really sunk in until now. If only I knew this morning that today would be my last day to be alive. But I knew that I wouldn't die without a fight. I'd gotten this far and if I wasn't going to fight for myself, I was going to fight for Katniss. She was the motivation that had kept me going through these Games. I wasn't going to stop being motivated by her now.

The anthem played and the Capitol sign shone as Peeta and I kept walking through the forest to nowhere in particular. Foxface's face light up in the sky and then so did Tresh's. _So, Tresh was the one who died._ I thought.

"How do you think he died?" Peeta asked a few minutes after their faces disappeared.

"I don't know. Could be anything." I said bluntly. I was much too nervous to talk to Peeta, even though I knew that this could be one of the last times we would ever talk, I knew if I opened my mouth much more, I'd probably throw up. I wasn't ready to die.

All of a sudden, a deep growling and barking came from a short distance away. Peeta looked at me with his eyes full of fear. "What was that?" he asked shakily. But his question was quickly answered, as only a hundred of so metres away in the forest clearing was a dark brown wild dog looking mutt, snarling at us. Within seconds, a second mutt appeared. Then a third. And a fourth. I was paralysed with fear until the mutts began to hurtle towards us at full speed.

My legs began to run faster than they ever had before. Peeta was close to my side running just as fast. We hadn't spoken since we'd seen the mutts, but we both knew where we had to run to. The Cornucopia. It was assured to me that the Gamemakers would have set some of the mutts on Cato to drive him towards the Cornucopia just like Peeta and I in the hope to finish the Games with as much blood and drama as possible. I was not ready for this. I was not ready for this at all.

We reached the golden gleaming Cornucopia within minutes and Peeta helped me to get up onto the top of it where the mutts wouldn't be able to reach it. As soon as Peeta and I were on safely and away from the mutts, Cato joined us, running from a huge pack of mutts himself like I had suspected. I looked at Cato as he struggled to get on the top of the Cornucopia and saw that he was very injured. He had several cuts on his face alone, and his legs had a few deep cuts as well as his chest. The mutts must of caught him off guard.

When he was safely on the roof, he pulled out a spear from a belt around his trousers. It looked like the only weapon he had on him at that minute. I loaded my bow and arrow and aimed it for his heart, but neither of us used our weapons. We were there, poised, weapons ready to kill, but not moving. Peeta was stood behind me. He was holding the little knife in his hand that I had gotten a while back from the sponsors, but I knew that that the little knife wouldn't help him at all right now. He was right to be standing behind me.

"Well go on. Shoot." He said after a couple of minutes of unmoving tension between us. His mouth turned into a snarl and blood dribbled from the inside of his mouth.

"Why don't you throw?" I said. I didn't really know why I was practically asking him to kill me. I wanted him to think that I was playing a clever mind game with him, and he would be afraid. My insides were churning and I was shaking. I was sure that I was as pale as ghost right now, showing to Cato that I was fearful of him and what he may do, which just made me even more afraid.

"Putting pride to my district by killing. It's the only thing I know how to do." He said, his smile disappearing. "Hey, is that what they want, hey? Is that what they want?" He shouted up at the sky, slightly lowering his spear. I was pretty sure he was speaking to the Gamemakers.

"Yeah. That is what they want." I said bravely as I tightened my arrow on my bow string.

He looked back up at me. His eyes were dark and emotionless. "One more kill." He said, aiming his spear again. "Just one more."

And at that point, I let my arrow go and it flew straight into his gut. But before he fell off the Cornucopia to the hungry mutts below us, he threw his spear directly at me.

I waited for the intense pain of the spear entering my body, killing me within seconds, but it never came.

And that's when I noticed the boy shrivelled in front of my feet.

Peeta had jumped in front of the spear to save my life.


	26. Chapter 26 Peeta Mellark

_**Chapter 26**_

"PEETA!" I screamed collapsing on the Cornucopia roof next to him. He groaned as he placed his hands over his bleeding stomach where the spear was still sticking out from. I grabbed his hands and interlocked them with mine. "No. No, no, no, no, no." I said.

"Unfortunately yes." He said breathily giving a weak smirk.

"Even when you're lying here with a spear in your gut, you still find a way to make a joke," I said meeting him with the same weak smirk. I brushed my thumbs over his hands in an attempt to comfort him. Peeta groaned from the pain in his stomach. My trousers were beginning to get soaked in his blood. My face turned to stone. "You can't be dying, Peeta. No. You can't. You jumped in front of me, you're taking my death, Peeta. This can't be happening." I said. Tears struck me as I spoke and I made no effort to hide them.

"Oops." He said, laughing a little. He looked up at me with his beautiful blue eyes. I was going to miss those eyes. He lifted his hand weakly to my face and wiped away one of my tears. "Prim-"

"No!" I shouted. My sobs were getting uncontrollable now. "You're not going to say your goodbye. No. You can't. You're going to get better, Peeta, I swear. We'll get some bandages from sponsors and medicine and you'll be okay, I swear-"

"Prim." He repeated, interrupting my garble of lies. "I'm not going to be ok." He began to cry a little, and moan at the same time from the pain of the spear. I knew that any normal person suffering from this injury would be dead by now, but I knew Peeta was hanging on for me, so he could say goodbye. I decided to let him. "Primrose, you're the best friend I've ever had. Better than any of those stupid merchant kids I hung around with at school. Thank you so much for being so amazing. Never forget it." he said, taking a moment to stop and moan again.

"Keep going." I said, gripping his hands tightly and trying to choke back tears, hoping he could just hang on a little longer. I couldn't say bye yet.

"And… and…" he coughed, spitting a little blood out. "Tell her. Tell her I love her. Make sure she knows how much I love her, and always will." I put my head on his chest and cried harder. He lifted my head up with finger and placed his hand on my cheek. "Hey, Prim. You're the victor now. You get to see her again." He coughed again, spitting more blood onto my face. He tried to say sorry, but his coughing got worse. He leaned over to cough to make sure it didn't get in my face this time, but his head didn't rise again after his last cough. I looked over to him, and saw that his bright eyes had lost their sparkle, and he was unblinking.

"Peeta?" I said, my voice quivering. "Peeta? Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta." I said repeatedly, trying to make him respond, but there was no response. He was dead. Two cannons then went off. One for Cato, one for Peeta. Then the announcement came that I was the victor of the 74th annual Hunger Games. But I didn't care. I was screaming and screaming and screaming his name, begging him to wake up and give me that cheeky smile, but of course it didn't come. "NO, PEETA! NO!"

I shook his limp dead body until I realised it was no use. I knew the Gamemakers were going to collect me and the dead bodies of Cato and Peeta within a minute, so I lay next to Peeta's dead body and wrapped his arms around me. I shoved my face into his neck and cried more tears than I ever knew was possible. I held tightly onto Peeta, blocking all thoughts of being the victor out of my head because I couldn't care less right now. All I wanted at this minute was Peeta to wake. I wanted him to wake and come home with me and tell Katniss of his love himself. I wanted him to wake up and be my friend back in District 12. I wanted him to wake up and teach me how to bake cakes with berries we'd collected together. I just wanted him to wake up.

But Peeta wasn't going to wake up.

And then, a hovercraft appeared in the sky. It was the first time I'd ever seen one, but I took no notice towards what it looked like. Instead I looked at Peeta. I took in every inch of him. His blonde messy hair. His closed blue eyes that had such lovely long eyelashes. His jaw and cheekbones which were so defined.

And then my entire world went black as the hovercraft collected us.


	27. Epilogue

_**Epilogue **_

After the hovercraft took me and Cato and Peeta's dead bodies, I was taken to one of the Capitols finest hospitals. I wasn't there for long as I had no infections or cuts or broken bones. They took a good look at my ankle, but it had healed by now. The doctors told me they were impressed by my healing work, but I didn't even speak to them. On the last day of my hospital stay, the doctors gave me a massive course of pills to take every morning, noon and night. They were called anti-depressants. I'd never heard of them before, but my doctor told me that they were to "boost my mood". He told me that I had a mild form of depression, which as he told me himself was being "very very sad". We both knew that it had developed because of everything in the arena, but neither of us said that. All Capitol people took a blind eye to the aftermath effects of being a victor. They just saw it as the riches and glory and fame. But I didn't care for that at all.

When I was let out of hospital with my course of anti-depressants, I was shoved into interviews and stylist meetings and back to the penthouse in the Capitol. It was such an empty process knowing that Peeta wasn't with me. He wasn't going to be there in the middle of the night at the penthouse when I had a bad dream. He wasn't going to be sitting at the dinner table, beckoning me to sit with him. No, he wasn't going to do any of these things. He wasn't here anymore. Peeta wasn't here.

At my interview with Caesar Flickerman, I was given a higher dosage than normal of anti-depressants just so I could find a will to talk about Peeta and Rue's death with someone else other than myself. Talking to Caesar was the only talking I'd done since I'd said my goodbyes to Peeta, and even then, I was sure it was because of the drugs. I didn't want to talk to any of these Capitol snobs. I hated them for everything they'd done. They'd killed Peeta and Rue, not the Career tributes, they had. If it wasn't for these god damn Games, Peeta and Rue would still be here. All of the tributes would still be here. I wouldn't be on these drugs. Sure enough, without the Games, I'd of never talked to Peeta or even met Rue – but the Capitol took them away from me. They took away my lovely rays of happiness, and now I only had one. My family.

When I returned back to District 12 at long last, I was greeted by the entire population, cheering epically for their newest victor. My family, including Gale, were standing at the back of the crowds, waving at me and blowing kisses. I could see the look on Katniss' face that day. I still remember how proud she looked. It was an emotion I'd rarely seen in her, but that day of my arrival back home, it was painted all over her face.

Mother, Katniss and I (including my beautiful cat Buttercup who didn't leave my side for weeks after I came back and my goat Lady) moved into the Victors Village around a week after me being home. A couple of Peacekeepers helped us move what little belongings we had over there, even though the houses made especially for victors were already furnished.

It turned out, while I was gone, Katniss and Gale had become an official item. Gale, like I had told him to the day in the justice building, had told Katniss of his love for her. It took her a while to tell him the same back, as she was too focused on the Games and seeing of my welfare to be focused on Gale. But, over time, they got closer. Physically, that is. They were pretty much as close as they could get before. Gale had sympathised her throughout the Games, as well as bringing her and mother food regularly so they didn't turn into bags of bones mourning for me while I was stuck in the arena.

I kept taking my course of anti-depressants as when I didn't, I didn't even get up out of bed in the mornings. I would lay there looking emotionless, but suffering an entire messed up war inside my head. The first four weeks that I got back from the Games, I stayed in bed anyway even with the drugs. I was mourning over Rue and Peeta. It took three weeks and constant night terrors for Katniss to talk to me about it. She'd been holding it off for a while because she felt so uncomfortable talking about Peeta after he tossed her the bread a few years back, but especially now after he had proclaimed his endless love for her live on national television and sacrificed his life for her sister and her happiness. When Katniss eventually began to talk to me about Rue and Peeta's deaths, she was incredibly comforting. Katniss hadn't changed from the tough exterior sister with the gentle core for her close loved ones inside at all. She listened to me with great detail as I told her about Rue and her life and what I liked about her, and the same for Peeta. She even stuck it out when I told her about how much he loved her and what he said about her off screen to me, like I had promised him I would do before he died.

"Well, baby, Prim… He was a lovely man. Not just for saying those things, but for everything he's done for us." She had said after I told her about his love. "And we will make sure his funeral is unforgettable." And it was those four words that forced me out my bed mourning lumber. Peeta's funeral.

It's date was planned for just before the Victors Tour. I invested a lot of my victors winnings to make Peeta's funeral unforgettable like Katniss had said. I couldn't let Peeta's death be forgotten as easily as other tributes over the years. Peeta did something amazing in those Games, and there was no way I would dare let anybody forget that.

The day of his funeral was a dark, cold day. The clouds were threating rain upon us as a sign to the Capitol that Peeta's death shouldn't of happened. It was a mistake. It should never of happened. There was a ground turnout for the funeral. Almost everybody in the district arrived, apart from those who had no care for anything at all and those who were on their deathbeds themselves. Peeta's family all gave short speeches about how they were going to miss him and how proud they were of him for getting to the final three, but my speech was a little different.

"Peeta Mellark's death was a mistake. It should never of happened. He was the courageous boy I have ever met and he always will be. I will never forget about how he sacrificed his life to save mine. I will never forgive him for it either. I should of died in the arena, and Peeta should of come home. But he didn't. I have never known a bigger act of selflessness. Peeta will live on forever inside my heart. I will never forget him. He will be with me everywhere I go. He is the brother and the best friend that I've never actually had. Rest in peace, Peeta Mellark. You shouldn't of died. I miss you already."

I had to be carried off the stage at his funeral that day by Gale, as I had collapsed onto the floor in a fit of uncontrolled tears half way through my speech. But my speech did leave an impact to the citizens of District 12, as everybody kissed their three middle fingers and held them up in the air, the old District 12 way. I did the same as Gale carried me off stage. I stayed in bed after that until I was forced to go onto the Victors Tour.

I was put through the torture of being styled again. My stylists were in disgrace with my tatty hair, unwashed skin, dirty fingernails and a list of god knows what else. They seemed to find fault in everything on me that day, but after a couple hours of straight work on me, they had me suited up for the public again. My family hugged me and kissed me as I was taken away by the Capitol madmen for the tour.

District 1 and 2 were pretty hard to visit. I had to look into the face of Cato's family, knowing I'd killed him. Same for the boy from District 2, who's name turned out to be Marvel. It was also so horrible seeing Glimmer and Clove's families knowing I'd played a huge role in their deaths. I had watched them die, and now I had to see their families mourn. Effie Trinket, my old escort to the Games, gave me a pre-written Capitol approved speech for each district after my doctor got into contact with her telling her my depression was probably going to affect what I would say in my speeches and it would be best to control what I said in any way possible – which of course, was to give me a ready to say speech. The speeches were always so cheesy and cliché, and you could see on the district citizens faces that they were bored listening to me, even though their hands and voices were force clapping and cheering for the new victor.

District 11 was by far the hardest district to visit. I saw Rue's family in the flesh. I saw the sister she had told me about – her name, Gabriele. I remembered how she had told me about she and Gabriele would sing to the mockingjays. I felt guilty immediately. Rue and Gabriele reminded me of myself and Katniss. I felt so awful knowing that I had gotten back my lovely sister, while Gabriele never would ever again.

I saw Rue's brother, too. His name was Freshen. I felt so awful from him also. He hadn't just lost his sister, but his best friend, Tresh, too.

Tresh's family looked crestfallen also. My heart broken over ten million times that day in District 11.

District 12 was the last on the Victory Tour because it was the District I was from. I saw Peeta's family for the first time that day after the funeral. They looked slightly broken, but still the same family. It was awful for me to see them looking so slightly normal. It appeared as if Peeta was correct when he told me his family wouldn't even be that affected by the Games and it's why I should go home. It seemed as if his death affected me more than it had them – but I didn't know what was going through their minds at all. Who knows what goes on behind the closed doors of the bakery when it closes at night?

Effie took me over the details of my upcoming mentoring in the next Games for years to come before she left District 12. I didn't know how to deal with the fact I had to be a mentor in the Games. I had to mentor children to their deaths. I had seen what mentoring and the Games had done to Haymitch, and I didn't want that to happen to me.

But, it had to happen. The first year of mentoring was the worst. It was a Quarter Quell and so everything in the Games that year was even more exciting for all the Capitol citizens. The Quarter Quell always has a 'special' twist to it, and this year's one was that there were two separate arena's. One for boys and one for girls. Twenty four girls and boys were chosen at random and shoved into different arena's and once there were only one of each left in the arena's, they were put into a whole new arena to fight to the death with each other for the victors crown.

It was a truly awful year to begin to mentor with. Haymitch was surprisingly supportive of me, however. He stopped drinking for the entire time of the Games, which lasted almost four weeks that year, and that's a lot of sober for Haymitch. But while the Games were on, Haymitch made sure I took all my anti-depressants and he even began to talk to me about what advice I should give the tributes over the next years I would be mentoring. And one day in the Capitol when I was very homesick and I hadn't taken my medication, Haymitch really talked to me. Like, a heart to heart sort of thing. I saw a side to him that I'd never seen when he said to me: "Look, sweetheart. You have a better life than thousands out there. You got a roof over your head, you got food on the table. Winning the Games has given you and your precious family all of that. Sure, the Games may of fucked your head up a lot – but who doesn't it mess up? That's the price of the Games. That's the price you pay to see your family. But, hey, sweetheart – at least you have your family. Just remember that. Just remember what's good, and you'll get by okay."

In the Quarter Quell that year, all four of the District 12 tributes died. Both the boys and one girl were killed in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. The other girl, whose name was Tamara Gums, survived until the final five in her group of girls. She had gotten by from just staying in a tree near stream the whole time, only ever coming down to catch a fish and drink water. She ended up dying of food poisoning from a nasty fish the Gamemakers set into the water to test her. It was so horrible to see all of my tributes die, and it was even worse seeing their families mourn for them at their funerals back in 12, knowing that I should of helped them better in the Games.

Mentoring was always hard every single year that I was forced to do it, but what Haymitch has said to me in the Quarter Quell had really stuck in my brain and I had become to be more naturally happy, without the constant need of my anti-depressants. My family kept me going. Katniss brought me into the forest after a couple of years of coming back from the Games. It took me months and months to even touch her bow and arrow again, but the confidence to use it came back to me over time. She'd taught me tricks and skills with it, and I could see from the sparkle in her eyes that she enjoyed sharing a hobby with me. I began to teach her a little bit about healing too, and some days she stayed with me long enough to not throw up at patients injuries. I remember laughing for the first time since the Games and Peeta's death on the first day that I showed Katniss how to fix a dislocated bone like I had in the arena when a miner came in to our house get some help with it.

Over a lot of years, I got fully back into healing, and whenever I wasn't mentoring or being sent to the Capitol for some special victors show or something or other that they wanted me for, I trained to become a real healer like my mother. We set up a bigger apothecary shop, also, and it made me truly happy. I was still taking my anti-depressants, but at a much lower dosage.

And even though my life seemed to be getting on track, nightmares still haunted my sleep. The deaths of Peeta and Rue played constantly in my minds most nights, while on others I saw the people I'd kill try and kill the people I loved, or mutts would come and get me. A thousand different Game related nightmares every night. Katniss would always comfort me whenever I awoke in a pool of sweat from my nightmares until the day she moved out of the Victors Village and back into our old home with Gale to start their own lives. They got married. It shocked me, but made me feel happy too. I was happy Katniss was happy and that she found someone. The girl who seemed to hate any romantic relationships with people was now settling down with a lovely, handsome man in their own home. They never had children, however. Katniss was never ready for that. She told me she didn't want to bring children into a world where they could be so easily taken away from her and forced in the Games, and I didn't blame her for feeling that way. I would of felt the same if I had found someone to settle down with.

Instead, mother and I lived together in the Victors Village for many, many years. Due to our riches lasting us a long time, we bought another cat. It came from the Capitol, and seemed like such a squeaky clean cat compared to old Buttercup. We also got another goat, so Lady wouldn't feel as lonely in her old age. It felt much less lonely with more animals in the house.

So that's the story.

That's the story on how I won and survived the 74th Hunger Games. My life was never the same after I had won, but I had made the best of what was left of it.

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_**Authors Note: **__Hello! I just want to say a really huge thank you to anybody who has read this story over the past few weeks I've been writing it. It's my very first fanfiction, so this whole thing was really knew to me, but reading all the reviews I've gotten made me love every minute of it. _

_I just wanted to say, that I really hoped you liked my story. I truly think that's what would of happened if Prim went into the Games. I hated that Peeta had to die in Chapter 26, but I don't think the Gamemakers would of allowed two victors if there wasn't any love between the two of them like they did with Katniss and Peeta. _

_I want to say a huge thank you to everybody who reviewed, and please review this epilogue of the story! I can't wait to write another story, so keep your eyes on this page! _

_If you have any story ideas you'd like me to write, or something along the lines of that, please personal message me, or just review. _

_Again, thank you! I loved writing this story! I hoped you liked reading it as much as I did writing._

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May the odds be ever in your favour.

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leonamellark


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